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Beautiful Weather Continues Through Mid Week

Matt Ross @ 1:00 AM

Fortunately, the heat and humidity that epitomize DC summer is nowhere in sight. Glorious spring weather, albeit a bit warmer than the last few days, continues through midweek with seasonable, gorgeous conditions. Why can't we get this on the weekend?

Today


Sunny, Superb. After a brisk morning start, Tuesday will become delightful by midday and throughout the afternoon. High temperatures will rise to near 75 degrees under crisp, blue skies.

Tonight and Tomorrow


Forecast Confidence: HighMore of the Same. Tonight will be a bit more mild than the last few nights, though still a few degrees cooler than average. Colder locations will drop to the mid 40s, with low 50s in town under clear skies. Wednesday will again be wonderful. Sunny, with low humidity, afternoon highs will climb to the mid to upper 70s with a light breeze. Refer to Jason's forecast for the rest of the week and weekend.



Depicted Above Courtesy of StormVista in partnership with MDA EarthSat: Neat graphic illustrating temperature departures from normal for May through Sunday for the continental United States. As you can see, the coldest air with respect to normal is in Northern New England and the Pacific Northwest. DC which started out warm and was around +1 through Sunday is now normal for May after the last 2 days.

Greensburg Tornado


As most of you know, on Friday night the strongest tornado in 8 years struck the Kansas town of Greensburg causing massive destruction and at least 10 deaths. The Greensburg Tornado was an EF5 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale(EF Scale) which is the most severe level. The EF Scale, based on the original Fujita Scale and implemented just this February, is a tornado scale which combines the type of damage with the degree of damage to come up with estimated wind speed.


Aerial view of Greensburg, Kansas after the town of 1500 was completely leveled, courtesy of Usawx.com


Past DC-AMS scholarship recipient and current Oklahoma University meteorology major, Brett Roberts, witnessed the devastation firsthand on Sunday:

While chasing yesterday evening in SW KS, we took US-183 north out of Coldwater into Kiowa County, only half realizing that Greensburg was right ahead since we were preoccupied with a cone tornado on the ground off to our distant east. I know it's cliche, but the suddenness with which the damage path began was astonishing. Just another stretch of highway on a 700-mile chase day became a war zone in a matter of seconds. First, we saw large power lines down, then noticed that they were demolished for at least a couple miles ahead of us. Then came the trees, barns, and homes on the outskirts of town. Trees were mangled and debarked, and houses lay in total ruin - in some cases with horrifically large objects (tanks of some sort, grain silos, large vehicles, etc. I believe) planted atop the wreckage. Small fires burning in some of the wreckage. The odor in the area was enough to make your stomach turn - not sure exactly what combination of things it was, but it sure wasn't good.

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