Sunday, January 4, 2015

That was interesting- my apologies!

First off, let me say DO NOT GO ON THE ROADS THIS MORNING- THE TEMPERATURE NEVER ROSE ABOVE FREEZING LAST NIGHT AND THERE IS A SIGNIFICANT ICE ACCUMULATION ON THE GROUND, AND FREEZING RAIN IS STILL FALLING (At least at my house in Wallingford- I'm not leaving the house today).

Now that that's out of the way, as a meteorologist, the next thing to do is say "Yeah, that wasn't right", and proceed onwards to figuring out "Why did this happen". The answer is simple- the cold air that was in place over us yesterday was so strong that the warm air simply rose above it, which is lucky because it melted the snowflakes (we are actually somewhat lucky this didn't turn into a major snowstorm instead, simply because of the cold air's strength), yet the surface was below freezing due to a process called "cold air damming", which means the warm air simply can't mix down. Thus, we got an unusual event last night- an inside runner that produced a pretty darn significant ice event for us here in CT. The focus will now shift to Tuesday's clipper and a nor'easter around this time next week, but there's no need to issue a storm watch at this time for either, Tuesday's because there likely won't be enough snow, and Sunday because it's too far out for any certainty whatsoever.

Again, my apologies for screwing this one up. It happens to all of us, but I prefer to be more accurate. It's really quite unfortunate this didn't happen during the school week, as I feel my school district would probably be closed if it did.

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