Tuesday, May 10, 2005
Beautiful Weather
Matt Ross @ 12:00 AM
Forecast Thoughts
Today looks like another nice day with Mostly Sunny skies and highs in the mid to upper 70's. A warm front approaching late in the day may trigger some isolated shower activity, but most of the action should stay to our South and West. Enjoy the recent return to seasonable May warmth. But, as alluded to by Jason, stay tuned for the potential cooling effects of a backdoor cold front later in the week.
The above map shows that for March and April the core of cold temperature deviations from normal were centered on the Southeast coast, while the Plains and Upper Midwest saw temps well above normal. Here in DC, we were slightly below normal for the 2 months combined. More detail below.
Warm Spring or Cold Spring?
While it appears that our cold spell has come to an end for the time being, it was quite impressive while it lasted. The 15-day period from April 22nd through May 6th saw the thermometer fail to surpass 70 degrees. Additionally the first 6 days of May had a high temperature of 65 or lower, the only time this has occurred in at least 40 years. The closest analog to the beginning week of May is 1988. In May 1988 after hitting 70 degrees on the 1st of the month, high temps were in the low 60's for the next 5 days before rebounding to 70's and 80's for the rest of the month. The warmth was persistent enough that May 1988 finished slightly above normal for the month. Through Sunday, this May was running 6.4 degrees below normal, but these deviations can be eroded rather quickly with some persistent warmth as we saw this past winter with dramatic mid month reversals that erased huge temperature surpluses. Despite these occasional deviations from average, our spring so far is averaging very close to normal at -0.7 degrees.
Today looks like another nice day with Mostly Sunny skies and highs in the mid to upper 70's. A warm front approaching late in the day may trigger some isolated shower activity, but most of the action should stay to our South and West. Enjoy the recent return to seasonable May warmth. But, as alluded to by Jason, stay tuned for the potential cooling effects of a backdoor cold front later in the week.
The above map shows that for March and April the core of cold temperature deviations from normal were centered on the Southeast coast, while the Plains and Upper Midwest saw temps well above normal. Here in DC, we were slightly below normal for the 2 months combined. More detail below.
Warm Spring or Cold Spring?
While it appears that our cold spell has come to an end for the time being, it was quite impressive while it lasted. The 15-day period from April 22nd through May 6th saw the thermometer fail to surpass 70 degrees. Additionally the first 6 days of May had a high temperature of 65 or lower, the only time this has occurred in at least 40 years. The closest analog to the beginning week of May is 1988. In May 1988 after hitting 70 degrees on the 1st of the month, high temps were in the low 60's for the next 5 days before rebounding to 70's and 80's for the rest of the month. The warmth was persistent enough that May 1988 finished slightly above normal for the month. Through Sunday, this May was running 6.4 degrees below normal, but these deviations can be eroded rather quickly with some persistent warmth as we saw this past winter with dramatic mid month reversals that erased huge temperature surpluses. Despite these occasional deviations from average, our spring so far is averaging very close to normal at -0.7 degrees.
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