Post by Bennett D. Ebberly on Nov 5, 2003 19:22:09 GMT -5
Cold Front Charges Toward Eastern U.S.
4PM EST, November 5, 2003
by WeatherBug Chief Meteorologist, Mark Hoekzema
A cold front marking the leading edge of anunusually cold air mass that has covered the West for nearly 5 days now has begun to pick up speed as it heads east, sparking storms and heavy rain and eventually offering relief to the stagnant heat and humidity in the east.
The front advancing through the Appalachians late Wednesday afternoon was dropping temperatures ushering in an air mass that is 20-30 degrees colder than the same time 24 hours earlier.
As the cold front pressed into warm and unusually humid air over the mid-Atlantic, strong thunderstorms formed.
The storms were moving quickly east and northeast, affecting Washington and Baltimore late Wednesday afternoon. The storms are likely to affect Philadelphia, Richmond and Norfolk Wednesday evening.
An AWS WeatherNet station in Germantown, Maryland about 25 miles northwest of Washington, DC recorded a gust to 63 mph around 3:20 PM EST. Law enforcement officials reported a tornado on the ground around 3:30pm in Boyds, Maryland, near Germantown.
Keep alert to your WeatherBug for any watches or warnings that are issued. Damaging winds and localized flooding are the main threats with these storms.
Further west, temperatures from Chicago to Oklahoma City were running 25-35 degrees colder than yesterday morning as the cold air had dropped the mercury to the middle to upper 30s.
An AWS WeatherNet station at Crowell Junior High School in north-central Texas had fallen to 39 degrees by 2PM CST, a far cry from yesterday`s balmy 79 degrees.
The real bitter cold has entrenched itself over the northern Rockies and northern Plains. Afternoon temperatures remained in the upper single digits and teens across much of Montana, Wyoming and the Dakotas into west-central Minnesota.
Butte, Montana fell to 18 degrees below zero early Wednesday and while Jordan, Montana in the eastern part of the state shivered at -15 degrees.
A part of this very cold air mass has begun to spread east across the Great Lakes this morning and a moderated form of this will move into the Ohio Valley and New England over the next 24 hours. This will send temperatures dropping 20-30 degrees from the mild morning temperatures experiences in these areas this morning.
A blast of even colder air has been holding up over north central Canada for the past week and it appears that it will let loose behind this moderated cold shot heading eastward today. Extremely cold winds will begin to blow into the northern Plains and western Great Lakes on Thursday night and Friday.
This air mass will spread eastward into the eastern Great Lakes, New England, the Ohio Valley and Mid-Atlantic on Friday and Saturday with some of the coldest air of the season. Some very cold nights are ahead this weekend for these regions.