This must be our reward for battling back from the snowy purgatory we found ourselves in last month - a gorgeous, cloud-free day with temperatures in the deliciously perfect upper 60s and low 70s. 

The mercury out at BWI-Marshall Airport reached 70 degrees at 3:15 p.m. Thursday. It was the first time we've seen the 70s there since Nov. 15, when we touched 72 degrees

The Washington airports were in the same ballpark: 69 at Dulles at 3:59 p.m., and 71 down at Reagan National at 3:04, according to the NWS forecast office in Sterling, Va.

Here at The Sun, we reached 71 degrees at 3:30 p.m. It was 70 at the Maryland Science Center.

So, with spring officially less than 48 hours away, have we finally rid ourselves of all the February snow piles out there? The one behind my house has finally vanished. How about yours? How are the mall parking lot piles doing? Any more guesses on when the last of February's snows will finally trickle away?

(SUN PHOTO/Perry Thorsvik 1998)

Posted by Frank Roylance at 6:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: By the numbers
        

Four of the big snowstorms that struck the Northeastern United States this winter have been ranked among the 30 highest-impact snowstorms of the last 54 years.

The assessments are made by the National Climatic Data Center. Meteorologists there use a ranking system developed to weigh not just the snow depth at any one location, but the depth, the geographic area and the population it affected over its full range.

Called the Northeast Snowfall Impact Scale (NESIS), the system was developed in 2004 by Paul Kocin and Louis Uccellini, of the National Weather Service. It's since been applied retrospectively to every major storm since 1956, and to all the big Northeast snowstorms that have occurred since the scale was developed.

The NESIS scale calculations generate an index number, which is translated into a five-level Category ranking similar to the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale, including Notable, Significant, Major Crippling and Extreme. 

Only two storms have been ranked as Cat. 5 "Extreme." They were the March 12-14, 1993 storm, which was given a NESIS number of 13.20; and the Jan. 6-8, 1996 storm, rated at 11.78.

Here, for comparison, with their preliminary rankings and NESIS numbers, are this winter's four biggest snowstorms. Only the three earliest had a major impact in Baltimore. And here's a link to the full list.

17. Feb. 23-29, 2010: 5.11, a Cat. 3 "Major" storm.

21. Feb. 4-7, 2010:  4.30, a Cat. 3 "Major" storm. (Map above.)

25.  Dec. 18-21, 2009:  4.03, a Cat. 3 "Major" storm.

26:  Feb. 9-11, 2010:  3.93, a Cat. 2 "Significant" storm.

Posted by Frank Roylance at 4:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: By the numbers
        

Elkridge and several other communities in Howard and Anne Arundel counties topped the charts for rain totals in Maryland for the 48 hours ending Sunday morning. The two-day total at Elkridge was 4.15 inches.

BWI-Marshall Airport reported 0.98 inch on Friday, another 2.31 inches on Saturday, and 0.29 so far on Sunday, for a three-day total of 3.58 inches. The average monthly rainfall for a March at BWI-Marshall is 3.93 inches.

Here on the WeatherDeck in Cockeysville, we have 1.98 inches on the gauge since Friday. The Sun's weather station at Calvert and Centre streets shows 2.34 inches since Friday.

Here are some other totals for the two days of rain, compiled from CoCoRaHS:

Elkridge, Howard County:  4.15 inches

Severn, Anne Arundel:  3.79 inches

Ellicott City, Howard:  2.86 inches

Elkton, Cecil:  2.74 inches 

Towson, Baltimore Co.:  2.70 inches

Columbia, Howard:  2.65 inches

Severna Park, Anne Arundel:  2.49 inches 

The National Weather Service has been reporting flooded roads in Elkridge, Thurmont and in Towson over the last 24 hours. The Potomac is in moderate flood at Paw Paw, W.Va., Point of Rocks, Md. (see chart), and at Wisconsin Avenue in Washington, D.C. Minor flooding is reported on Antietam Creek at Sharpsburg, and Harper's Ferry and Little Falls on the Potomac.

Posted by Frank Roylance at 12:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: By the numbers
        

This storm isn't over yet, but rain tallies overnight show that Anne Arundel County has received most of the rain so far. The only station reporting totals higher than Arundel's this morning was Thurmont, with 1.75 inches by 8 a.m. The totals were gathered by CoCoRaHS.

Also, the flood gauges so far show most rivers and streams in Maryland have not yet reached flood stage, although much of the runoff is not expected to reach the larger rivers until late today or tomorrow. You can follow the river flooding here. The chart below shows that water levels on the Potomac at Wisconsin Avenue in Washington have already climbed within a few inches of flood stage.

Here are some samples of the rain totals reported by this morning. The differences across the region are sharp. Where northern Arundel reported well over an inch, Towson saw barely a half-inch. Here on the WeatherDeck in Cockeysville, we've recorded less than three-quarters of an inch. NWS forecasters seem to be dialing back on their more dire rain forecasts of Friday afternoon.

Thurmont, Frederick Co.:  1.75 inches

Severn, Anne Arundel:  1.68 inches  

Severna Park, Arundel:  1.29 inches

Leonardtown, St. Mary's:  1.11 inches

Salisbury, Wicomico:  1.01 inches

Ellicott City, Howard:  0.94 inch

Columbia, Howard:  .81 inch

Sykesville, Howard:  0.66 inch

Towson, Baltimore Co.:  0.59 inch

In the meantime, Flood Warnings have been posted for Garrett, Allegany and Frederick Counties as snowmelt and rain push small streams and creeks over their banks. Waters are expected to continue to rise into Sunday.

UPDATE 11 a.m.: Flood Warnings have been extended to Baltimore County and City, northern Anne Arundel County, Howard and Carroll counties.

Posted by Frank Roylance at 8:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: By the numbers
        

After spending a brief period at the top of the snow pile, it looks like Baltimore sledded to 5th position by the season's end in the competition for the title of "Snowiest U.S. City 2009-10."

Here are the top 10 finishers, according to a Web site called Golden Snow Globe. No idea who they are, so I can't vouch for their numbers. I know the total listed for Baltimore (80.4 inches) is no longer valid. The National Weather Service forecast office at Sterling, Va. has recalculated and cut the official total for BWI-Marshall Airport to 77 inches. That pushed Mobtown to 5th place, instead of 4th as listed on the site.

Here's now it should look:

1. Syracuse, N.Y.: 106 inches 

2. Erie, Pa.:  90.9 inches

3. Rochester, N.Y.:  89.6 inches

4. Philadelphia, Pa.:  78.7 inches

5. Baltimore, Md.:  77 inches

6. Pittsburgh, Pa.:  76.9 inches

7. Buffalo, N.Y.:  74.1 inches

8. GrandRapids, Mich.:  70.2 inches

9. Fort Collins, Colo.:  69.6 inches

10. Lakewood, Colo.:   68.2 inches

(SUN PHOTO: Algerina Perna)

Posted by Frank Roylance at 4:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)
Categories: By the numbers
        

The winter of 2009-2010 will still go down in the history books as the snowiest on record for Baltimore. But in the end it will be three inches less stupendous than we thought.

Meteorologists at the National Weather Service have just finished adjusting their snow tallies to account for measurement problems at BWI-Marshall Airport. Officially, at least - the winter delivered 77 inches, not 80.2 inches as the weather service first reported.

And the big storm in December will be recorded officially as an 18-inch snowfall, not 21.1 inches as the first reports stated. December's monthly total has been similarly reduced from 23.2 inches to 20.1 inches, according to the Baltimore-Washington Forecast Office in Sterling.

The changes don't affect any of the records broken in December. The Dec. 18-19 snowstorm remains the biggest December snow on record for Baltimore, and the month remains Baltimore's snowiest December.

And even at a mere 77 inches, it's still the snowiest winter on record for the city. The annual average for Baltimore is 18.2 inches.

The reduction in some winter snow totals was made late last week as Sterling reviewed each of the season's snowfalls to adjust for measurements that were not in compliance with the weather service's protocol.

Until the problem was discovered in the wake of the Feb. 5-6 blizzard, contract observers working for the Federal Aviation Administration were making only hourly snow measurements, and taking storm totals after the flakes stopped falling - called "snow depth" measurements.

The technique, which complies with FAA rules, is considered invalid by the NWS for climatological data, because it does not allow the snow to compact.

The weather service requires that snow measurements for climatological purposes be made one every six hours. Because of compaction, the totals are usually smaller. That's what the FAA contractor was supposed to have been supplying to the weather service.

So, with no six-hour data, Steve Zubrick, Sterling's science and operations officer, elected to use the FAA's snow depth data instead of the hourly measurements, because it is the most conservative solution.

He and forecaster Jared Klein combed through the data and made the changes. Some snowfalls were unaffected. Most turned out smaller. A few increased due to rounding of snow depth numbers to the nearest inch.

Here are the original and revised numbers for BWI:

December: Original:  23.2 inches  Revised:  20.1 inches

January:  Original: 7.5 inches  Revised:  6.9 inches

February:  Original: 49.5 inches  Revised:  50 inches

Season:  Original: 80.2 inches  Revised: 77 inches 

Major storm totals:

Dec. 18-19:  Original:  21.1 inches  Revised:  18.0 inches

Feb. 5-6:  Original:  24.8* inches  Revised:  25 inches  

Feb. 9-10:  19.5 inches (no change; measured properly) 

* This was the original snow depth measurement. The FAA's total from one-hour measurements was 28.8 inches. 

(SUN PHOTOS: Top: Algerina Perna/Bottom: Karl Merton Ferron)

Posted by Frank Roylance at 4:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)
Categories: By the numbers
        

Okay, so we don't want to think about snow anymore this season. But just to tie a ribbon on the season ...

James E. Lee, meteorologist-in-charge out at the National Weather Service forecast office in Sterling, Va., says both big storms that struck the region in February will go down in the weather history books, at least preliminarily, as blizzards.

The weather service announced soon after the Feb. 5-6 storm that blizzard conditions were recorded at BWI-Marshall Airport from approximately midnight on Feb. 6 until 5 a.m., with winds gusting to 37 mph and visibilities reduced to one-eighth of a mile in heavy snow.

Blizzard conditions occur when falling or blowing snow reduce visibilities below a quarter mile for three hours - not necessarily consecutive hours.

Today, Lee confirmed that blizzard conditions were also reported at BWI-Marshall during the Feb. 10-11 storm, at 10 a.m., 2, 3, 4 and 6 p.m.

We already know this was the snowiest winter, the snowiest February and [February was] the snowiest month on record for Baltimore. Here are a few other winter weather trivia from this meteorological winter just ended, just published in the NWS Monthly Climate Report for BWI-Marshall in February:

1. Baltimore recorded two separate, two-day, double-digit snowfalls in the same month (Feb. 5-6 and Feb. 9-10) for the first time since record-keeping for snow totals began in the 1880s.

2. The two big February storms dropped a combined 44.5 inches of snow at BWI in just six days. It was the most snow ever to fall for any 7-day period on record for Baltimore. The previous record weekly snowfall was 32.6 inches, in Jan. 6-12, 1996.

3. The daily 7 a.m. "climatological snow depth" - the snow measured on the ground at BWI - on Feb. 11 was 34 inches, setting a new record. The old snow-depth record was 30 inches, recorded on Jan. 18, 1957. 

4. The average snow depth for Baltimore in February was 11 inches, the highest average monthly snow depth ever recorded for the city. The previous record was 7 inches, in January 1996.

5. There was at least an inch of snow on the ground at BWI on 22 dates in February. That's the third-highest number of February days with an inch of snow or more on the ground for Baltimore. The highest number is 27 days in 1934, followed by 25 days in 1905.

6. The maximum daily temperature at BWI failed to reach 50 degrees for the entire month. That's the first time that's happened in any month since January 1977, and only the 10th time on record. Even so, February 2010 ranked as only the 22nd coldest February on record here. 

(SUN PHOTOS: TOP: Karl Merton Ferron/BOTTOM: Kenneth K. Lam)

Posted by Frank Roylance at 5:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: By the numbers
        

The National Weather Service's Sterling, Va. forecast office has disowned the list of Top 20 Snowstorms for Baltimore that was posted on its Web site for many years. In the wake of the Feb. 5-6 storm, concerns were raised about the scientific legitimacy of the criteria long used for inclusion on the list.

Jim Lee, meteorologist-in-charge at Sterling, told me that one of the problems is that the list does not discriminate among 1-day, 2-day and 3-day storms, not to mention those that seemed to rage on even longer. The No. 1 ranked snowstorm, before the list disappeared from the Sterling site, dropped snow on Baltimore over four days, from Feb. 15 to Feb. 18, 2003.

But Lee told me a few weeks back that, meteorologically speaking, no snowfall that lasts four days can be considered the consequence of a single storm. And in truth, that 2003 event really was a combination of at least two storms, with some time during those four days when no snow was falling. (The Baltimore Top 20 snowstorm list includes two others, in 1899 and 1892, that stretched over four days.)

So, because climatologists only accept data on 1-, 2- or 3-day storms, the Sterling office will be reassessing its Top 20 list. What we'll probably get will be several lists, broken down by the length of the storm, and ignoring the snow that fell on the fourth day of three former Top-20 storms.

The Sterling office will also be reassessing storms that may have been measured at BWI-Marshall with hourly measurements - in accordance with FAA standards - rather than with the six-hour measurements required by NOAA for climatological purposes. That could reduce official storm totals for BWI going back as far as 1998, when the FAA took over the job of measuring snowfall at the airport from the weather service. There are six Top 20 storms since 1998 at BWI that could be affected.

I'm not sure how all this will come out in the wash. It seems likely that, if the FAA's contractors really have used hourly measurements since 1998, that all our snowstorms since then will get smaller. When the problem was discovered last month, Lee rejected the 28.8-inch total the FAA contractor reported for the Feb. 5-6 storm based on its hourly measurements. He replaced it with the more conservative 24.8-inch measurement the contractor reported as the storm's "snow depth" - the total measured when the snow stopped falling (and after the snow's weight had compacted it). 

On the former issue - revisiting the entire storm record at BWI and Washington and ranking snowfalls in separate categories according to the number of days the snow fell - I suppose they have to abide by the rules set by climatologists.

But, on the latter, it seems to me that those of us who are not climatologists experience snowstorms as discreet events based on how much we have to shovel once the flakes stop falling. I would argue that the February 2003 "storm" - while it may have been two storms - felt like one really long siege to those of us left to dig out from 28 inches of snow.

So, in the interests of continuity ... or nostalgia, or something less than scientific ... here is the old NWS Top 20 Snowstorms list for Baltimore, using the old (now officially discredited) criteria, and updated to include the three big storms from December 2009 and February 2010. Clip and save. You may never see it again after the NWS issues its revised lists.

Some observations: February, while it is not the snowiest month on average at BWI, has seen nine of these Top 20 storms, as many as January and March combined. December has seen just two. But what's most astonishing to me, personally, is that, while the record goes back to the 1880s, my family and I have witnessed 10 of these 20 storms since we moved to Baltimore only 30 years ago. How about you? There should be only three or four that no one living today can recall.

1. Feb. 15-18, 2003:  28.2 inches

2. Jan. 27-29, 1922:  26.5 inches

3. Feb. 5-6, 2010:  24.8 inches*

4. Feb. 11, 1983:  22.8 inches

5. Jan. 7-8, 1996:  22.5 inches

6. Mar. 29-30, 1942:  22.0 inches

7. Feb. 11-14, 1899:  21.4 inches

8. Dec. 18-19, 2009:  21.1 inches

9. Feb. 18-19, 1979:  20.0 inches

10. Feb. 9-10, 2010:  19.5 inches

11. Mar. 15-18, 1892:  16.0 inches

12. Feb. 15, 1958:  15.5 inches

13. Jan. 25, 2000:  14.9 inches

14. Dec. 11-12, 1960:  14.1 inches

15. Feb. 11-12, 2006:  13.1 inches

16. Mar. 5-7, 1962:  13.0 inches

17: Jan. 22, 1987:  12.3 inches

18. Jan. 30-31, 1966:  12.1 inches

19. Feb. 16-18, 1900:  12.0 inches

20. Mar. 13-14, 1993:  11.9 inches  

* Snow depth measurement. The "true" depth, had it been measured every 6 hours, likely would have been more.

(TOP: AP Photo/Rob Carr; BOTTOM: Sun Photo/Gene Sweeney, Jr.)

Posted by Frank Roylance at 10:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)
Categories: By the numbers
        

Although there are still some flakes in the forecast, the three-month meteorological winter ended at midnight last night. So it's a good time to add up the damage and answer some questions I've already been getting from readers.

SNOWFALL BY MONTH:

December: 23.2 inches (Average: 1.7 inches) 

January: 7.5 inches (Average:  7.0 inches)

February: 49.7 inches (Average:  6.4 inches)

Seasonal total*: 80.4 inches (Average: 18.2 inches)

*Through Feb. 28

WINTER SUPERLATIVES (for Baltimore):

Snowiest winter: Old record: 62.5 inches in 1995-96

Snowiest December: Old record: 20.4 inches in 1966-67

Wettest December: (8.06 inches melted precip.) Old record:  7.44 inches in 1969

Snowiest February:  Old record: 40.5 inches in 2002-03

Snowiest month:  Old record:  40.5 inches in 2002-03

DAYS WITH AT LEAST 1 INCH OF SNOW AT BWI-MARSHALL:

December:  3

January:  2

February:  6

SNOWIEST DATE OF WINTER (Midnight to midnight): Dec. 19, 2009:  20.5 inches

BIGGEST STORMS (at BWI Marshall):

Dec. 18-19, 2009:  21.1 inches

Feb. 5-6, 2010:  24.8 inches*

Feb. 9-10, 2010:  19.5 inches

* estimated due to measuring error at BWI 

And, just for the record, here's how AccuWeather.com, back in October, predicted the winter would turn out.

And here's a bit of how the National Weather Service predicted it in an October story in The Sun: Looking back over previous winters in the Baltimore-Washington area during El Nino events, Mike Halpert, deputy director of the National Climate Prediction Center, said, "If you add all the years together there is a tendency for above-average snow ... We've seen with El Nino winters[like this one] a couple of years with absolutely no snow in this area. But we've also seen winters with some record-breaking snows. It's a feast-or-famine type of situation."

I guess we got the feast, Mike.

(SUN PHOTOS/Frank Roylance)

Posted by Frank Roylance at 10:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)
Categories: By the numbers
        

High winds driving around the west side of the big snowstorm now centered over Long Island reached more than 50 mph in gusts across parts of Central Maryland overnight. The winds contributed to thousands of power outages locally. Here's a sampling from the National Weather Service:

MARYLAND

...ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY...
   1 N BALT-WASH INTL A    53 mph  1:24 AM  2/26   KBWI ASOS
   1 W HARMANS             53 mph   1:09 AM  2/26

...BALTIMORE COUNTY...
   1 N BALTIMORE MARTIN    46 mph  11:00 PM  2/25   KMTN AWOS

...FREDERICK COUNTY...
   MIDDLETOWN              56 mph  4:10 AM  2/26
   1 ENE BRUNSWICK         53 mph   3:49 AM  2/26

A station near Petersburg, W.V. reported a gust of 67 mph at 3:17 a.m. Here's more. And here's a sampler:

Frederick County:

Ballenger Creek:  63 mph  7:45 a.m.

Buckeystown:  57 mph  7:29 a.m.

Green Valley:  57 mph  7:53 a.m.

Middletown:  56 mph  4:10 a.m. 

Washington County: 63 mph  7:44 a.m. 

High wind warnings remain in effect across the region until 6 p.m. Friday. The NWS said:

"STRONG GUSTY NORTHWEST WINDS WILL CONTINUE THROUGH TODAY.
NORTHWEST WINDS OF 25 TO 35 MPH WILL GUST BETWEEN 55 TO 60 MPH...
WITH LOCALLY HIGHER GUSTS...ESPECIALLY LATE THIS MORNING.

"WINDS THIS STRONG WILL CAUSE DANGEROUS TRAVEL CONDITIONS...AND
LIKELY KNOCK DOWN TREES AND POWER LINES."

Winter Weather Advisories also remain in effect. Here's the full forecast for BWI.

Meanwhile, way out west, the hardy folks of Garrett County are grappling with blizzard conditions and another (nearly) two feet of snow out of this system. That comes on top of the 19 FEET of snow they've had already this season. That's no typo. Wisp resort reports 26 inches this week, with 218 inches so far this season. 

Now, Marylanders living out in Garrett are no snow sissies. But this winter is beginning to get to them. We received this report this morning from Cindy Stacey on the latest blow:

"Weather is probably worst of winter so far. We received 21.6 inches in this system. County emergency folks say most county roads are impassable. Brad Frantz is director of emergency management in Garrett County. He's advising everyone to stay off roads, unless emergency ... Nearly everything is closed, including Wal-Mart! Before this system, we've had 19-ft of snow this winter. Calling it hurricane-like storm ... even worse than blizzard. Amazingly, our power is still on, despite 30-50 mph winds."

We are trying to reach a spokesperson for the Garrett emergency management office. But it's a small outfit, and they say they are "extremely busy." We'll keep trying. Meantime, if you're up there, send snow photos. Clogged roads, buried houses and cars, crazed residents. It's all good.

John McCracken was snowboarding in two feet of fresh powder this morning. McCracken is marketing coordinator at the Wisp Resort in McHenry.

He said his commute to work this morning took twice as long as usual as snow and wind combined to fill in quickly behind the county plows.  

"As far as the local roads around the area, they're definitely snow-covered for sure," he said. "I saw something I've never seen in my life - a personal truck with a personal plow actually plowing a state road this morning. And they definitely appreciate all the help they can get."

UPDATE: Garrett County emergency management officials say Garrett's roads are "basically impassable," and are likely to remain that way throughout the weekend. There have been two multi-vehicle pileups on I-68, with casualties. Plow crews "cannot keep up." Motorists are being urged to stay home.

Has Garrett County had enough of winter yet?

"With a lot of the locals, you kinda get comments like, 'Boy, I haven't seen a snowfall like this in years.' So they've seen it before, but not recently," McCracken said. "We haven't broken the record for snowfall in Garrett County yet, but we're close."

"People new to the area, I think they're a little ... I don't want to say sick of snow ... but they are definitely ready for warmer temperatures and for spring to come," McCracken said.

Not so on the mountain. Despite gusts over 40 mph, and perhaps higher on the ridge tops, ski and snowboard conditions are terrific, McCracken said. "We're looking for a high of 22 today. I have been out all morning snowboarding, and it's not bad. A little windy ... not something you want to hang around in all day."

"As far as conditions, they are amazing. I got first track this morning ... I was riding in snow over my knees, some of the best conditions you can have," he said. Most trails and lifts are open, although a few loading and unloading areas are too deep in snow and need to be cleared.

(Top: Anemometer/Frank Roylance; Bottom: Wisp Resport/John McCracken, used with permission)

Posted by Frank Roylance at 7:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: By the numbers
        

Seems almost balmy out there, as temperatures poke into the 40s for the first time in more than two weeks.

February is running 7 degrees below average so far at BWI-Marshall Airport. We still have 10 days to go, and things do seem to be warming up. But for the month to date, this would qualify as the fourth coldest February on record for Baltimore. Here are the coldest average February temperatures for the city:

1934:  24.3 degrees

1979:  25.6 degrees

1895:  26.2 degrees

2010:  27.2 degrees (through Feb. 17)

It's not so much that we've seen many extraordinarily low readings at the airport thus far in February. The coldest were 11-degree readings on the 7th and the 15th.

It's more that the temperatures were consistently low, in the 30s every day but one, and the teens and 20s every night. Only one day thus far in February averaged above the long-term norm for the date. That was Feb. 3, with a high of 42 degrees (the average high for the date) and a low of 27 degrees - a little above average.

Even today's balmy readings in the mid-40s are still barely meeting the average for the day's date.

Forecasters in recent days have been looking ahead at changes in the large-scale weather patterns that seem to promise a warm-up into the 50s in the first week of March. Sounds like sun-bathing weather after this month. But highs near 50 in the first week of March in Baltimore are only about average.

It will just feel like spring. But if it makes you feel better, March 1 does mark the end of the meteorological winter.

(SUN PHOTO/Karl Merton Ferron/2009)

Posted by Frank Roylance at 11:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: By the numbers
        

Thanks to Christine Fellenz, Sun Graphic artist

As a footnote, I should add that December - remember December? - was also the snowiest December on record for Baltimore, with23.2 inches of snow at BWI.

Oh, one more thing: Here is the NWS interactive snowfall map for the Tuesday/ Wednesday storm.

I'll be taking a few days off. Please talk amongst yourselves.

Posted by Frank Roylance at 8:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)
Categories: By the numbers
        

For a city that sees 18.2 inches of snow in the average winter (and less than 12 inches in each of the last three winters), this can only be described as a jaw-dropping season. NO ONE predicted this, and no one could have.

So far this winter - and I say "so far" because there is more snow on the horizon - Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport has recorded more than 6 feet, 7 inches of snow. That is nearly four and a half times our annual average. Plenty of locations in Central Maryland saw more.

We have had three big storms averaging 21.8 inches each at BWI. Nothing like that has ever been recorded here. We have witnessed the snowiest winter, the snowiest February and the snowiest month on record for the city.

And if you can believe these guys, Baltimore has just bumped off Syracuse, N.Y. for first place as the snowiest city in the U.S. this winter. We soared from 26th place just five days ago. Washington, D.C. is 10th.

And people are complaining that their street hasn't been plowed.

Here are the seasonal numbers, all from BWI, through Feb. 10:

December:  23.2 inches

January: 7.5 inches

February: 49.2 inches

Total:  79.9 inches (6' 7.9 inches) 

Previous Record: 62.5 inches, set in 2002-03

Seasonal average:  18.2 inches

Here are the BWI stats for February 2010, through Feb. 10: 

Feb. 2-3 storm:  4.9 inches

Feb. 5-6 storm:  24.8 inches

Feb. 09-10 storm:  19.5 inches

Month total: 49.2 inches

Previous Feb. record: 40.5 inches (2003)

Feb. average: 6.4 inches

Here are some early reports on 24-hour snowfall from the CoCoRaHS network. Here are more from NWS weather spotters. Frederick, Carroll and Baltimore counties seem to have topped the charts, with many locations reporting two feet of snow and more from the latest storm. Some have more than four feet on the ground.

You can see more on snow cover across the country, including the snow depth map at the top of this post, here. 

One more thought. We're only 11 days into February - not even halfway - but so far we are running almost 7 degrees below average for the month, at 26.6 degrees through Wednesday.  We have had  just one day of above-average temperatures. If we ended the month this cold, it would be the fourth-coldest February on record for Baltimore. But surely the temperatures will rise in the next two weeks. Right?

Coldest Februaries in Baltimore:

1934:  24.3 degrees

1979:  25.6 degrees

1895:  26.2 degrees

2010*:  26.6 degrees

Average: 35.5 degrees

* - Through 2/10/10

Continue reading "So far this winter: 6 feet, 7 inches of snow at BWI" »

Posted by Frank Roylance at 7:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (22)
Categories: By the numbers
        

New snow accumulations across Central Maryland at mid- to late- morning have begun to top 1 foot, with the highest numbers, as forecast, in the north and east portions of the state.

Here is a sampling from the National Weather Service, which asks us "not to panic" and to "enjoy your favorite indoor activities." (I could have a lot of fun with that one, but I better not go there.)

Lineboro, Carroll County:  15 inches 

Norrisville, Harford:  14 inches 

Long Green, Baltimore County:  13 inches

Monkton, Baltimore Co.:  12.8 inches

Glyndon, Baltimore Co.:  12 inches

Catonsville, Baltimore Co.:  11.3 inches

(The WeatherDeck, Cockeysville:  11 inches/ Can you find the cars in this picture?) 

Severn, Anne Arundel:  10 inches

Germantown, Montgomery:  10 inches

Mount Airy, Carroll:  10 inches

Camp Springs, Prince George's:  8.5 inches

Gwynn Oak, Baltimore City:  7.5 inches

Here's more from the NWS:

"WHILE ALL REGIONS IN THE AREA ARE EXPERIENCING EXTREMELY DANGEROUS
CONDITIONS...BALTIMORE COUNTY...THE CITY OF BALTIMORE...AND ANNE
ARUNDEL AND HARFORD COUNTIES IN MARYLAND ARE EXPERIENCING
PARTICULARLY PERILOUS WINTER WEATHER CONDITIONS THROUGH 3:00 PM.

"PEOPLE ARE ENCOURAGED NOT TO PANIC...BUT TO SIMPLY STAY
INSIDE...ENJOY YOUR FAVORITE INDOOR ACTIVITIES...AND RIDE THIS STORM
OUT...THE HAZARDOUS CONDITIONS WILL BE IMPROVING LATER THIS EVENING."

And then there's this, for those of you reading this as you drive the state's scenic byways:

"IF YOU GET STRANDED IN YOUR VEHICLE...DO NOT LEAVE YOUR CAR TO TRY
TO WALK FOR ASSISTANCE...YOU CAN QUICKLY BECOME DISORIENTED IN
WIND DRIVEN SNOW AND COLD. THIS STORM WILL SUBSIDE EARLY THIS
EVENING...SO WAIT IN YOUR CAR FOR EMERGENCY HELP TO ARRIVE."

"PERIODICALLY RUN YOUR ENGINE FOR ABOUT 10 MINUTES EACH HOUR FOR
HEAT. ENSURE YOUR EXHAUST PIPE IS CLEARED OF SNOW AND ICE. CRACK
YOUR WINDOWS TO AVOID CARBON MONOXIDE POISONING. TIE A COLORED CLOTH
TO YOUR CARS ANTENNA OR WINDOW TO BE VISIBLE TO RESCUERS. FROM
TIME-TO-TIME...MOVE YOUR ARMS...LEGS...FINGERS...AND TOES TO KEEP
BLOOD CIRCULATING."

Posted by Frank Roylance at 11:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)
Categories: By the numbers
        

The National Weather Service has posted a pretty nifty, Google Maps-based interactive map of last weekend's snow totals in and around Baltimore and Washington, and elsewhere around the region. You can zoom in, pan around and click on individual readings.

If you look at the readings around BWI, it becomes a bit difficult to swallow the NWS conclusion that the airport received "only" 24.8 inches of snow. Aside from one 20-inch report from Fermdale, virtually ALL the other readings in the vicinity of the airport - including Elkridge and Glen Burnie - are in the 29-38-inch range.

Speaking of snow (do we speak of anything else these days?), we just pulled data on snowfall in the six largest cities among the 15 with the highest annual average snowfall, according to the National Climatic Data Center.

We're talking about places such as Flagstaff, Ariz., (averaging 100.3 inches), and the lake-effect cities of Erie, Pa. (88.8 inches), Syracuse (115 inches), Buffalo (93.6 inches), Rochester (92.3 inches) and Binghamton, N.Y. (84.2 inches).

Baltimore, by contrast, averages a paltry 18 inches a year.

This season, however, B'more is playing with the big boys.

At 60.4 inches and counting, we have seen more snow this winter than Binghamton (44.3 inches), and stand within striking distance of Buffalo (61.3  inches), Erie, Pa. (62 inches), Rochester (63.5 inches) and - with 10 to 20 inches of snow en route to Charm City - even Syracuse (74.5 inches) may be within reach.

Only Flagstaff, with 106 inches already this season, and snow expected all week, seems invulnerable.

Glory can be ours. (Well, maybe. It's snowing in all of these places this week.)

BTW, the snowiest city on the list? Blue Canyon, Calif. They average 240 inches of snow a year.

(SUN PHOTO by Karl Merton Ferron/ Feb. 6, 2010)

Posted by Frank Roylance at 2:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (15)
Categories: By the numbers
        

Even with the asterisks hanging like icicles from the Super Bowl Weekend Storm, it looks like Baltimore will set a new record this winter for total snowfall in a single season. If so, it will be the third seasonal snow record set in just 14 years.

According to the tally from the National Weather Service, we have so far accumulated 60.4 inches of snow since the first flake stuck on Dec. 5, 2009:.

December 2009: 23.2 inches

January 2010:  7.5 inches

February 2010:*  29.7 inches 

That total has eclipsed the No. 2 season and brings us within barely 2 inches of the all-time record. We could easily break that mark when the next storm strikes on Tuesday.

Here's how the seasonal rankings look now:

1. 1995-96:  62.5 inches

2. 2009-10:  60.4 inches*

3. 2002-03:  58.1 inches

4. 1963-64:  51.8 inches

5. 1898-99:  51.1 inches

*Through Feb. 6

On another topic, I've been thinking about the kerfuffle over the official measurements of the snowfall at BWI-Marshall. After a contractor (I believe the NWS "contractor" at BWI is the FAA staff) failed to follow NWS protocol in measuring the storm total, Sterling's meteorologists had to estimate the total accumulation, and picked 24.8 inches. The number is a conservative choice between the 28.6 inches arrived at with hourly measurements, and the 24.7 inches measured after the storm had finished accumulating and became compacted.

They concluded that the Super Bowl Weekend Storm beat the previous record for a two-day storm, which Sterling interprets to be the Feb. 16-17 piece of the four-day Presidents' Day Weekend Storm in 2003. Until yesterday, the NWS Sterling forecast office Website had always rated the 2003 storm as a four-day event that totaled 28.2 inches. Now they consider that a two-day event that totaled 24.4 inches

The new results:

No. 1 Two-day Storm: Super Bowl Weekend Storm 2010:  24.8 inches

No. 2 Two-day Storm: Presidents' Day Weekend Storm 2003: 24.4 inches

Still King of the Mountain: Three-day Knickerbocker Storm, 1922:  26.5 inches

I can understand why meteorologists fuss over how they should count a four-day storm like the Presidents' Day Weekend Storm in February 2003. That event truly was a combination of at least two separate storms, with some brief period in between with no precipitation.

And I suppose there is something useful to scientists about distinguishing one-day storms from the two-day and three-day variety; although I'm not sure why a 20-hour storm that snows past midnight should be treated as a two-day storm, while a 20-hour storm that occurs within one calendar date is classified as a one-day storm.

And I have no clue why this is an issue now, years after the Sterling folks posted their table of the Top Twenty Snowstorms in Baltimore, (also below) listing the four-day, two-storm, 2003 blowout as No. 1. (The table has now disappeared from the Sterling Web site.)

But in the end, it seems to me that what matters to the public is how much snow has been dumped on them, no matter how many days it took for it to end. For all of us who had to wait for the snow to stop back in 2003, and then dig out, the storm was a single event. And the snow we had to remove was 28 inches deep (more or less).

My vote would be to keep the old Top Twenty list, and insert the dear departed Super Bowl Weekend Storm at No. 3, after the Presidents' Day Weekend Storm in 2003, and the Knickerbocker Storm in 1922.

What say you?

(PHOTOS: Top: SUN PHOTO/Roylance-Snowdrift/ Bottom: UCAR satellite image of mid-Atlantic snow, shot Sunday 2/7/10)

Continue reading "Baltimore headed for seasonal snow record" »

Posted by Frank Roylance at 11:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)
Categories: By the numbers
        

Jim Lee, the meteorologist-in-charge at the NWS forecast office in Sterling, says a problem with snow measurements at BWI during the late departed snowstorm means we will not have an official total, perhaps for several days.

On top of that, he says, it's not yet clear how they will measure the four-day storm in February 2003 that currently holds title as the biggest on record for Baltimore.

One thing Lee says he is confident about is that this storm did beat the 2003 storm, by at least a fraction of an inch.

Here's the deal:

The contractor paid to make snow measurements at BWI for the weather service (the NWS has none of its own personnel there) evidently failed to follow NWS protocols in measuring the snow.

Those rules say the observer must allow snow to fall on an official "snow board" for six hours, then wipe it clear and repeat the procedure every six hours until the snow ends.

The technique is designed to split the difference between measuring all the snow at once (which means the snow will have compacted some from its own the weight), or measuring it more frequently, and perhaps exaggerating the snow depth by eliminating most compaction.

The contractor measured every hour on the hour and added it up. That produced a total of 28.6 inches. He also took a "snow depth" reading, meaning that he measured all the snow at once, after it stopped falling. Because of compaction, that came to 24.7 inches.

"We don't have an observation for every six hours," Lee said.

Sterling is now consulting with headquarters, and with climatologists, to figure out how to make a reasonable estimate of what a six-hour measurement might have been. "We'll have to come up with an official estimate somewhere between the 24.7 inch snow depth and 28.6," Lee said.

But then what should they compare it to? The No. 1 snowstorm currently on Sterling's Top Twenty list is the Feb. 15-18 storm in 2003. The total on the Sterling Web page for that storm was 28.2 inches.

Did the storm that buried my car (left) beat that? It's not clear.

The 28.2-inch measurement on the Sterling Web site notwithstanding, the National Climatic Data Center doesn't recognize four-day storms, Lee said. Besides, the 2003 storm was actually two storms. His office is now focusing on two days of that storm for the official record challenge. That's the total of 24.4 inches that fell on Feb. 16 and 17, 2003.

If that's upheld by the NCDC, both measurements from BWI for the Super Bowl Weekend Storm just ended would beat that mark, so whatever intermediate figure they eventually agree on would as well. And that would make this the biggest two-day storm on record for Baltimore.

Lee like its chances. "I'm feeling pretty comfortable saying we broke a two-day snowfall record in Baltimore," he said.

UPDATE: Preliminarily, the NWS is estimating the storm's two-day BWI total at 24.8 inches, beating the 2003 storm by 0.4 inch.

In the meantime, Sterling's Top Twenty Snowstorms chart was taken off the Website Saturday afternoon. The site still lists the February 2003 storm as the biggest THREE-day storm on record for the city at 26.8 inches. 

The biggest two-day storm, if downtown measurements are included, was in January 1922 - 26.3 inches. 

Stay tuned.

(SUN PHOTOS/Frank Roylance/The WeatherDeck (top)/My poor car (bottom))

Posted by Frank Roylance at 4:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (14)
Categories: By the numbers
        

The CoCoRaHS Network is now reporting a 7 a.m. snow total from Baltimore's Hamilton neighborhood  of 25.1 inches. Two-foot snow totals are becoming quite common across the region as more reports come in. Some spots are nearing the three-foot mark.

And the snow continues to fall. It's snowing hard on the WeatherDeck in Cockeysville at noon.

UPDATE at 2:50 p.m.: Snow has stopped on the WeatherDeck.

Here is the latest NWS tally. And here are some early morning CoCoRaHS reports from places not yet mentioned here:

Friendsville, Garrett County:  35.5 inches

New Market, Frederick Co.:  34 inches

Long Green, Baltimore Co.:  20 inches

Taneytown, Carroll:  20 inches

Greensboro, Caroline:  19.3 inches

Pasadena, Anne Arundel:  18 inches

Easton, Talbot:  17 inches

Funkstown, Washington Co.:  15 inches

Colora, Cecil:  13.8 inches

St. Michaels, Talbot:  12.5 inches

Princess Anne, Somerset:  2.1 inches

Posted by Frank Roylance at 11:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: By the numbers
        

At 10:30 a.m. Saturday, the National Weather Service is reporting 23.5 inches so far at BWI-Marshall Airport. That makes this the third-biggest snowstorm since snow records for Baltimore began in 1883.

And the snow is still falling. Another 3 inches and this Super Bowl Weekend Storm will eclipse the No. 2 snowstorm - the 26.5-inch blockbuster on Jan. 27-29, 1922.

Forecasters do not believe the storm will topple the all-time record - the 28.2-inch storm on Feb. 15-18, 2003.

We'll see.

(Fells Point PHOTO by Lindsay Rothstein/Used with permission)

Posted by Frank Roylance at 11:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)
Categories: By the numbers
        

The National Weather Service has completed a snow map for Tuesday night's storm. Not hard to see why one can't expect the forecasters to get it perfect for everyone's neighborhood. Enjoy:

Posted by Frank Roylance at 7:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)
Categories: By the numbers
        

It's 8 degrees out on a very snowy WeatherDeck this morning. That's the same low reading they reported this morning from BWI-Marshall Airport.

It's not quite a record for the date. The coldest Jan. 31 on record for Baltimore is 4 degrees, last reached on this date in 1966.  But it's plenty cold. The last time we reached single digits at BWI was more than a year ago, on Jan. 17, 2009 when we awoke to a 2-degree reading.

Here are some other lows from around the region this morning:

Washington DC:  16 degrees

Dulles International:  15 degrees

Annapolis:  19 degrees

Martin Airport:  10 degrees

Maryland Science Center:  18 degrees

Baltimore Sun:  16 degrees

The forecast calls for temperatures to warm up a litte bit each day this week, but it will stay well below the seasonal averages, and we may not reach the freezing mark today (Sunday). There is a chance for snow showers on Tuesday, and more rain or snow as the weekend approaches.

Oh, and there's snow on the ground this morning. You may have noticed it falling yesterday. The total at BWI-Marshall came to 5.5 inches, bringing the month's official total to 7.5 inches - just a half-inch more than the average for a January in Baltimore. For the season, we stand at 30.7 inches. That's a foot above the average season here and the most since 2002-03, when 58.1 inches fell.

Lots of us saw a bit more than the airport. We had 6 inches on the WeatherDeck. Here are some other early reports from around the region. As forecast, the higher totals are coming in from the southern counties. Here's a sampling:

Leonardtown, St. Mary's County:  11.5 inches

Friendly, Prince George's Co.: 8.1 inches

Waldorf, Charles Co.:  7.0 inches

Bowie, Prince George's:  6.9 inches

Long Green, Baltimore Co.:  6.8 inches

Columbia, Howard Co.:  6.1 inches

Here are more totals from the National Weather Service. Generally speaking, totals ran from 3 to 8 inches in the Baltimore area, with up to a foot in the southern counties. If forecasters had stuck with their original predictions, they would have looked brilliant.

(TOP: SUN PHOTO; Bottom, A snowy weathervane in Trappe, Talbot County; Jim Dawson. Used with permission.)

Posted by Frank Roylance at 7:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)
Categories: By the numbers
        

Runoff from recent heavy rains and melting snowpack is setting new daily streamflow records (black dots on the map), especially in the western parts of the state and nearby Virginia and West Virginia.

The North Branch of the Potomac, for example, was running at 11,400 cubic feet per second near Cumberland just after 3 p.m. Tuesday. That's more than 10 times the median flow for a Jan. 26.

The South Branch of the Potomac, near Springfield, WV. was running at 18,500 cf/s. The median for the date is 1,100 cf/s.

Near Paw Paw, W.V. (USGS photo in quieter times) the Potomac was at 44,800 cf/s, or 16 times the median flow for the date.

At Point-of-Rocks, Md., the Potomac was moving at 123,000 cf/s, or more than 13 times the median for the date. Minor flooding was reported there.

Records are being set along stretches of Bear Creek, Wills Creek and Fishing Creek, as well as the Youghiogheny and Savage rivers.

If you have high-water photos of this event, send them to me at frank.roylance@baltsun.com

Monday morning's storm also packed terrific winds. Here's a list of top gusts (and rain totals) recorded around the region. A resident near Smithsburg, in Washington County, reported a trampoline was picked up and blown nearly a mile. 

Posted by Frank Roylance at 4:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: By the numbers
        

A panel of the World Meteorological Organization, a part of the United Nations, this week certified a new official surface wind speed record (not related to tornadoes) that eclipses one held for nearly 76 years by the weather station at the summit of New Hampshire's Mt. Washington.

The Mt. Washington mark of 231 mph, set during a winter storm, had stood since 1934. The WMO panel of experts, after a thorough review, concluded that the new world wind speed record is 254 mph, set at Barrow Island, Australia during a tropical cyclone (hurricane) called Olivia, on April 10, 1996. Barrow Island is off the country's northwest coast.

I suppose that means the N.H. record actually stood for just 62 years.

A wind speed reading of 236 mph - higher than Mt. Washington's - was reported from Guam in 1997, during a Typhoon named Paka. But that report is in dispute.

Here is part of the WMO statement:

Geneva, 22 January 2010 (WMO) - According to a recent review conducted by a panel of experts in charge of global weather and climate extremes within the WMO Commission for Climatology (CCl) the record of wind gusts not related to tornados registered to date is 408 km/h during Tropical Cyclone Olivia on 10 April 1996 at Barrow Island, Australia. The previous record was of 372 km/h, registered in April 1934 across the summit of Mount Washington, USA.

Here's how the folks at Mt. Washington responded on their Web site:

“It was bound to happen, but it’s definitely quite a shock to hear that news,” says Scot Henley, Executive Director of the Mount Washington Observatory. “While we are disappointed that it appears that Mount Washington may have been bumped from the top, at our core we are all weather fans and we are very impressed with the magnitude of that typhoon and the work of the committee that studied it.”

(SUN PHOTO/Ernie Imhoff/Mount Washington summit, January 1999)

Posted by Frank Roylance at 2:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)
Categories: By the numbers
        

The official temperature at BWI-Marshall Airport today touched 66 degrees during the lunch hour. That was 9 degrees short of the record of 75 degrees, set on this date in 1967. But it was the warmest reading of the year, so far, and the warmest since Nov. 29, 2009, when we reached 67 degrees.

It was 67 degrees at Washington's Reagan National, and 65 out at Dulles Airport. 

This breath of spring can't last, of course. The barometer is climbing again, and forecasters say the cold front that passed by with this morning's storm will eventually usher in colder air. Temperatures will fall for the balance of the week, dumping us back below normal - in the 30s - by Friday, with a forecast for snow, and weekend lows in the teens and 20s.

Today marks the 12th day in a row with above-average daily temperatures at BWI. The warm stretch followed a string of 12 days in a row of below-average temperatures (Jan. 2 to 13).

Steve Zubrick, science and operations officer at the NWS forecast office in Sterling, Va., has looked at the data and found that these runs of 10 or 15 days of above- or below-normal temperatures in January are not uncommon here. 

But he agrees we're headed back into the cold cellar this week. Read his comments below.

Continue reading "Airport hits 66 degrees" »

Posted by Frank Roylance at 3:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: By the numbers
        

We already know that December brought Baltimore it's biggest December snowfall (Dec. 18-19), and it's snowiest and wettest December on record. Now the U.S. Geological Survey is adding to the most impressive statistics that piled up during 2009.

The year ended with 55.57 inches of precipitation at BWI, making it the 6th wettest year since record-keeping began there in 1871. The record is 62.66 inches, set in 2003.

December streamflow in Maryland was above normal in 90 percent of the USGS monitoring stations. Seven rivers and creeks struck new monthly mean streamflow records, including the Chicamacomico, Choptank, Nanticoke, Nassawango, Piscataway, St. Clements and St. Jones.

The new December record on the Nanticoke (graph above) broke one that had stood since 1948. And it marked the second straight month of record streamflow there after five months of increasingly high rates.

Groundwater levels have also been responding to the wet weather.  Levels in 81 percent of the USGS monitoring wells were above normal. Five set new records for December, all in Southern Maryland or on the Eastern Shore, including Kent County, Del., Somerset, Charles, Queen Anne's and Wicomico counties in Maryland.

The well in Kent County, Del. (graph below) topped records for the second-straight month, topping the 1967 record by four feet.

The reservoirs that serve Washington and Baltimore are in good shape, of course. But there is one curiosity: Liberty Reservoir stands at just 85 percent of capacity, according to the USGS. Not sure yet what's up with that, but we're trying to get an answer. Some sort of maintenance work, perhaps. Or maybe all these water main breaks have drained it. We'll see. Stay tuned.

UPDATE: Kurt Kocher, at the city Department of Public Works, says the USGS figure on Liberty Reservoir is incorrect. "The reservoir has been full since September." he said.

Posted by Frank Roylance at 12:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: By the numbers
        

The lower 48 states were much colder than average in December, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. But overall, the year 2009 ended slightly warmer than the long-term average. 

The report from NOAA's National Climatic Data Center also notes a number of notable factoids, some of which WeatherBlog readers already know about:

* December 2009 was the wettest on record for Maryland, Virginia, South Carolina and Georgia.

* It was also the snowiest December on record for a number of mid-Atlantic cities, including Baltimore, Washington and Philadelphia. Oklahoma City, too, saw its snowiest December ever as arctic air invaded the South.

* The average snow cover for the contiguous U.S. reached 4.1 million square kilometers, the greatest expanse of snow on record for any December since satellite observations began in 1966. (That's the latest snow cover map, at left.)

The December State of the Climate Report says the lower 48 states averaged 30.2 degrees in December. That's very cold - 3.2 degrees below the average. It was also pretty wet. Average precipitation was 2.88 inches, about 0.65 inch above the 1901-2000 average.

But for the whole year, the lower 48 states were both wetter and warmer than average. Temperatures across the country averaged 53.1 degrees Fahrenheit, 0.3 degrees warmer than the long-term average. The average precipitation was 31.47 inches, or 2.33 inches above the long-term average.

Regions that ended the year warmer than average included parts of the South, Southwest and West. The cooler regions included the Central Plains and the Midwest.

You can read more of the NCDC report here.

Posted by Frank Roylance at 10:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: By the numbers
        

The snow that you'll be tackling with shovels and back muscles on Sunday broke nearly all official December records, not just for Baltimore, but also for Washington's Reagan National Airport, and for Dulles International Airport in Northern Virginia.

Here are some storm totals from across the region. Here is a quick breakdown of the fallen records (from National Weather Service data):

BALTIMORE-WASHINGTON INTERNATIONAL THURGOOD MARSHALL AIRPORT: Records (for Baltimore) go back to 1883.

Dec. 19, 2009:  20.5 inches.

Two-day storm total: 21.1 inches. (This now ranks as Baltimore's 7th-biggest snowstorm on record, and only the second December storm in the top 20. See below)

Total, December to date: 22.2 inches.

Old Baltimore record for a Dec. 19: 7.6 inches in 1945.

Old record for any date in December: 11.5 inches on Dec. 17, 1932.

Old record for total snowfall in December: 20.4 inches in 1966.

REAGAN NATIONAL AIRPORT: Records (for Washington) go back to 1887)

Dec. 19, 2009:  15 inches.

Two-day storm total:  16.4 inches.

Total, December to date: 16.6 inches.

Old Washington record for a Dec. 19:  7 inches in 1945.

Old record for any date in December: 11.5 inches on Dec. 17, 1932.

Old record for total snowfall in December: 16.2 inches, 1962.

DULLES INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT: Records go back to 1963.

Dec. 19, 2009:  16 inches.

Two-day storm total:  18 inches

Total snowfall, December to date: 21 inches

Old Dulles record for  a Dec. 19:  3.1 inches in 2000

Old record for any date in December:  10.6 inches on Dec. 12, 1964

Record for total snowfall in December:  24.2 inches in 1966. This record still stands.

Continue reading "Storm breaks (nearly) all December records" »

Posted by Frank Roylance at 7:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (19)
Categories: By the numbers
        

Paul M. Novak Jr., of Baltimore, sent me this beautiful photo he shot over the weekend. He said:

"I was in Ocean City this weekend and caught and unexpected shot of a rainbow over the Ocean. It was a very blustery day, and just a real brief shower had passed through the area. I looked out of the hotel and here is what I managed to capture !"

Also in my mail this morning was this sort-of-related note, from Kevin Manning:

"As we approach 50" of rain for the year, can you inform us on the historical records for yearly rainfall? We are nearly 10" above the long-term average, so far this year."

The precipitation total for the year at BWI-Marshall Airport has nearly topped 49 inches. The long-term average for the airport for an entire year is 41.94 inches. So, after a bit more than 11 months, we are already nearly 7 inches above the yearly average. With just average precipitation in December we should have a 10-inch surplus for the year.

(Year-to-date for Seattle, Wash.: 35.69 inches. That city's reputation for rain is misunderstood. While they have many gray, damp days, the accumulations are generally small, summers are dry, and annual totals are modest.)

But remember that as wet as it's been in Baltimore since April, we began the year very dry, and ended March in drought. So, we are still a long way from record territory, and we'll need a deluge in December just to break into the top five wettest years on record (since 1871) for Baltimore:

2003:  62.66 inches

1889:  62.35 inches

1979:  58.98 inches

1996:  58.31 inches

1952:  56.57 inches

Posted by Frank Roylance at 8:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (12)
Categories: By the numbers
        

The National Weather Service has produced a map of the 72-hour rain totals during last week's nor'easter.

The map makes clear just how much more seriously affected counties to our south were, and especially those in southeast Virginia (left). Rain totals there ran above 10 inches in some places.

Out in far-western Maryland, meanwhile, there was little or no rain from the coastal storm.

(AP Photo/Jason Hirschfeld in Hampton Roads. Va. Nov. 13, 2009)

Posted by Frank Roylance at 2:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: By the numbers
        

While Baltimoreans may simply be tired of the gray, and the gloom, and the drip, residents of Maryland's southern counties - on both sides of the Chesapeake, are dealing with a serious deluge of rain and high tides from the big coastal storm that remains almost stationary off the Carolina coast, driving wind, rain and water inland.

Here's an animation of the storm's water vapor movement, from satellite sensors.

Precipitation totals in St. Mary's County for the past 24 hours have topped 5 inches, with some locations reporting nealy six inches and one - Great Mills - exceeding 7 inches. Normal rainfall for the month of November at BWI is 3.12 inches.

Here is a rain total map for the storm. 

High water and fallen trees have forced a number of road closings in the Leonardtown area, and delayed delayed school for some students Thursday as buses were re-routed around flooded roadways.

Ocean City has received 3.69 inches of rain since the storm arrived, the heaviest falling early Thursday evening. That's the Rehoboth Beach Web cam below.

Coastal Flood Warnings remain in effect Friday morning for Charles, Calvert and St. Mary's counties. Tides were expected to run 2.5 to 3 feet above normal  into Saturday before the storm begins to drift away from the mainland. Colton's Point and St. George's Island in St. Mary's County, and Solomons Island in Calvert were warned to expect significant flooding.

In addition, Ocean City was under Wind Advisories until 7 p.m. Friday. An earlier hHigh Wind Warning was cancelled. Winds are now forecast to average 25 to 35 mph, with gusts to 50 mph before weakening late in the day. With the soil saturated, such winds can be expected to topple some trees, causing more power outages. The Atlantic coast is also under a High Surf Advisory until 6 p.m. Friday. Tides at the Inlet are expected to exceed predictions by more than 5 feet, with moderate flooding in Ocean City.

Coastal Flood Advisories were up for Anne Arundel and Prince George's counties. Gale warnings and small craft advisories were posted for the Chesapeake. 

The rain amounts decrease as you travel north almong the Western Shore. Prince Frederick, In Calvert County, recorded 4.18 inches by Friday morning. Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport reported 1.24 inches. The storm has left just under an inch here at The Baltimore Sun in downtown Baltimore.

Here is a list of rain reports, as of Friday morning, from the National Weather Service.

As thick and damp and gloomy as it is here, it's interesting to note that clear, dry, sunny weather lies barely 150 miles to our west, beyond the reach of this slow-moving nor'easter.

Oakland, in Garrett County, is reporting "a few clouds" this morning. Elkins, W.Va. is sunny. So are Pittsburgh, Pa., and State College, Pa.  

Posted by Frank Roylance at 10:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: By the numbers
        

NOAA's October data are in, and the agency is rpeorting the October in the U.S. was, on average, the wettest, and the third-coolest October on the 115-year record for the lower-48 states.

Temperatures were below-normal in all regions except the Southeast (and in New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland, which were near-normal). Florida was the only state to report above-average temperatures. (Left)

The cross-country average of 4.15 inches of rain was the highest on record, nearly doubling the long-term average for October. Moderate-to-exceptional drought covered 12 percent of the contiguous United States, the second-smallest drought footprint of the decade, based on the U.S. Drought Monitor.

You can read the entire release, here. (Cue the global warming skeptics...)

On the other hands, atmospheric scientists say the proportion of record high temperatures to record lows across the U.S., is going up.

Posted by Frank Roylance at 4:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: By the numbers
        

The data are in, and no matter how wet and cool you remember October 2009, while it did end very wet, the temperatures averaged out to an almost precisely normal 55.3 degrees for Baltimore.

Rainfall for the month totaled 6.24 inches. That's a surplus of more than 3 inches, and the wettest October since 2005, when Tropical Storm Tammy's remnants drove the total to 9.23 inches.

And if you still feel like it was a cold October in Baltimore, it's probably the first half of the month that's stuck in your weather memory. Fourteen of the first 20 days of the month averaged cooler than the norm. 

The month's low was 34 degrees, on the 20th. The high was 83, on the 9th.

The coldest spell was from Oct. 14 through the 20th, a seemingly endless string of chilly, rainy days with temperatures averaging close to 10 degrees below the seasonal norms. Daytime highs stalled in the 40s to 50 degrees for four days straight. More than 3 inches of rain fell at BWI-Marshall in those same four days.

But we also enjoyed 12 October days of 70-plus temperatures, including one day in the 80s. Seventeen days were rated clear or partly cloudy.

And now November...

Average high temperatures for Baltimore in November slide from 61 degrees on the 1st to 51 degrees on the 30th. The average lows dip from 38 degrees to 31 degrees. The records run from 86 degrees (on the 1st in 1950), to 12 degrees (on the 30th in 1929).

Snow becomes a serious possibility in November for the first time. Many Baltimoreans will remember the Veteran's Day storm on Nov. 11, 1987, which left an official 6 inches at BWI, but caused much more disruption than the number would suggest.

The deepest November snowfall on record for the city is 8.4 inches, which fell on Nov. 30, 1967. Measurable snow has fallen here on all but eight dates in November.

The oldest weather record still standing for Baltimore in November seems to be the 1.79 inches of rain that fell on Nov. 23, 1879, still the record for that date. Also notable is the cold stretch from Nov. 19-24, 1880, when the maximum daily temperatures stalled near 30 degrees. Four of those high readings are still record low maximums for the dates.  

Posted by Frank Roylance at 11:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: By the numbers
        

This just in: Baltimore's reservoir system is full to the brim!

Actually, all three reservoirs - Prettyboy, Liberty and Loch Raven - runneth over in the wake of surplus rainfall in the region for five of the last seven months. Here's the straight dope, right from the Department of Public Works:

Liberty: Crest elevation: 420 feet above mean sea level. Current elevation: 420.31 feet. Capacity - 36.8 billion gallons. Available: 36.8 billion gallons

Prettyboy: Crest elevation: 520 feet. Current elevation: 520.34 feet. Capacity - 17.85 billion gallons. Available: 17.85 billion gallons.

Loch Raven: Crest elevation: 240 feet. Current elevation: 240.94 feet. Capacity: 21.2 billion gallons. Available: 21.2 billion gallons.

Total system: Capacity: 75.85 billion gallons. Available: 75.85 billion gallons.

The airport has recorded 6.21 inches of rain so far in October, almost double the long-term average of 3.16 inches. It's tied for the 13th-wettest October since record-keeping began in 1871. And it's the fifth-wettest October for Baltimore since the station of record moved to Friendship Airport (now BWI-Marshall) in 1950.

And there's a good chance, with more rain Saturday, that October 2009 could leap even higher on the chart. Another inch would make it the fifth-wettest October here since 1871. Here are the rankings for Octobers since 1950:

2005: 9.23 inches

1976: 8.09 inches

1971:  6.88 inches

1995:  6.24 inches

2009: 6.21 inches

(SUN PHOTO/Linda Coan/Loch Raven Reservoir, full, August 1999).

Posted by Frank Roylance at 3:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
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Sure, it's been raining like crazy. The airport has recorded nearly two inches since this latest rainy spell began Tuesday. Half of that has fallen since midnight. We had about the same out on the WeatherDeck in Cockeysville - 1.92 inches since this began, and 0.73 inch since midnight. Western Run, above, is running high and fast.

Here are some more 24-hour totals from around the region from the NWS. Here are more reports from CoCoRaHS. A number of locations on the Eastern Shore and in Anne Arundel County reported more than 2 inches.

Greensboro (Caroline Co.):  2.74 inches

Vienna (Dorchester): 2.44 inches

Ocean Pines (Worcester): 2.34 inches

Selby-0n-the-Bay (Arundel): 2.26 inches

Towson (Baltimore): 1.88 inches

At the airport, the rain has taken us to roughly 6.30 inches for the month, by my calculations. And that brings the year's total to about 43 inches - two inches more than the annual average for Baltimore, and more than in 10 of the last 20 years. And it's not yet November.

But just imagine if this were January, or February. The rule-of-thumb for converting rainfall into snow depth is 10 inches of snow for every inch of rain. Now, that's an average of some kind. Light, fluffy snow will be deeper than wet, heavy snow.  But a 1.9-inch rainstorm might have been a nearly 20-inch snowstorm had these same conditions assembled themselves here in, say, the second week of February.

And who knows? Maybe they will. How's that for a Halloween scare? 

Anyway, the bulk of the rain has moved off to the northeast. The National Weather Service is calling for mostly cloudy skies for the next few days. We may see some sunshine peek through. But the next cold front is due through here Friday into Saturday, with more showers on the menu before the month ends.

(SUN PHOTO/Frank Roylance; NOAA graphic) 

Posted by Frank Roylance at 10:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: By the numbers
        

Sure, it seems like this month has just been way too wet. And the wettest patch of the last couple of days is still ahead this (Tuesday) evening. We'll be hearing more rain on the roof tonight.

The radar map shows a big wad of wet weather surging into the Northeast. And the National Weather Service's Sterling forecast office says we're looking at another half- to three-quarters-of-an-inch of steady rain tonight - plus a quarter to a half inch more on Wednesday.

That could push the month's total past 5 inches before all this is over. 

But even if that comes to pass, we're still far short of the record for the month - the 9.23 inches that fell here in 2005. Now that was a REALLY wet October. We recorded 6.65 inches on Oct. 7-8 alone that month as the remnants of Tropical Storm Tammy washed through. Rain totals set new daily records on both those dates.

For the rain-weary, the good news is that the rain should begin to let up after noon Wednesday. But skies may not fully clear before another storm system arrives on Saturday - with more October showers.

Sorry.

Posted by Frank Roylance at 5:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
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All those long, cold, soggy days of drizzle, rain, wet leaves and the smell of long-idled furnaces switching on are behind us, at last. Forecasters out at Sterling are making amends this week with sunny skies forecast right through Thursday, and highs topping 70 degrees by Wednesday.

Now that's the sort of October we've come to expect in Maryland.

Still, the last five days (Oct. 14-18) are worth a glance backward as we sort out the records and near-records. I'll try to get it right this time.

COLD: Temperatures during this five-day period averaged 10.6 degrees below the long-term averages for these dates in Baltimore.

The official highs at BWI were:

Weds. Oct. 14:  50 degrees. Eighteen degrees below the average high for the date. That also matched the record-low maximum for the date, set in 1874.

Thurs. Oct. 15:  48 degrees. Nineteen degrees below average. A new record-low maximum for the date, breaking the previous record of 50 degrees for the date, set in 1876.

Friday, Oct. 16:  43 degrees. Twenty-four degrees below average. A new record-low maximum for the date, breaking the previous record of 52 degrees, set in 1940.

Saturday, Oct. 17: 45 degrees. Twenty-one degrees below average. A new record-low maximum for the date, breaking the previous record of 53 degrees, last matched in 1991.

Sunday, Oct. 18:  52 degrees. Fourteen degrees below average. This one fell short of the record-low maximum, set in 1972, by just 1 degree.

Bottom Line: Four consecutive days of matched or broken record-low maximums, the second-longest such streak since record-keeping began in 1871. Three consecutive October days with high temperatures falling short of 50 degrees. That matched the previous record, set in 1893 and matched in 1925 and 2002. But this was the earliest of the four. The rest all began on Oct. 29.

Now the precipitation:

The airport recorded 3.19 inches of rain from Wednesday through Sunday. That brought the month's total to date to 3.31 inches. Some locations in Maryland saw more. The heaviest rains fell on Saturday, with nearly 1.5 inches at the airport.

The season's first snow was reported in the Baltimore and Washington suburbs Saturday into Sunday, with a half-inch in Shrewsbury, Pa., and enough snow in the still-leafy trees to cause considerable tree damage in some locations as near to downtown as Sparks, in northern Baltimore County. We had this report today from "Patty," in Sparks:

"3 am, Sparks, Maryland, dog starts barking and we look around the house can't find what he is barking at.

"We get back into bed and I ask if there is hunting at night because I hear gunshots, not unusual in the area. I found out hunting is not allowed at night, I get up look out the window it is SNOWING! Cars are covered, ground covered, tree covered and bushes are covered. We could hear limbs snapping off the trees, and trees falling down. Incredible!"

The photo of snow and tree damage above was taken around 10:30 a.m. Sunday on Hunting Tweed Drive, in Owings Mills, by Gregory Hill. Used with permission. 

No snow was reported at the airport, the official station for Baltimore. In any case it wouldn't have set a record. The earliest snow for Baltimore fell on Oct. 9, 1903 (a trace) and Oct. 10, 1979 (0.3 inch).

So, now what?

Forecaster are calling for daytime highs to rise through the 50s today (Monday) and the 60s tomorrow, reaching the low- to mid-70s on Wednesday and Thursday as high pressure builds into the region and parks here for most of the week. Then the next cold front and showers arrive. (Those may include moisture from Hurricane Rick, now bearing down on Baja California.)

Until then, bright sunshine and south and westerly winds will warm us up quite nicely during the day. Skies will be favorable at night for most of the week for watching the Orionid meteor shower, between midnight and dawn.

Nighttime - especially tonight - is another story. Temperatures tonight are expected to "plummet," forecasters said, as clear skies allow any daytime heating to radiate back into space. "It is certain that frost/freeze products will need to be issued," they said in this morning's forecast discussion.  The forecast low for the airport Tuesday morning is 40 degrees, but the usually colder suburbs and rural areas will go much lower.

We had a low of 31 out on the WeatherDeck this morning, and we had to do some serious windshield scraping before we could head off for work. The airport low was 35 degrees, just 5 degrees warmer than the record low for the day, set in 1976.

(Top: SUN PHOTO/Amy Davis, 2005; Bottom: NOAA photo)

Posted by Frank Roylance at 10:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: By the numbers
        

After barely touching 50 degrees yesterday, the thermometer out at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport could be headed for a strange new record as we slosh through the weekend.

Steve Zubrick, the science and operations officer out at the NWS Sterling forecast office, says it looks like the mercury at BWI won't escape the 40s again until Monday, when the sun finally comes out. The forecast highs currently are 48, 44, 45 and 46 degrees respectively, Thursday through Sunday.

If that happens, it will be the first time since official record-keeping began in Baltimore in 1871 that we've gone four straight days in October without hitting 50 degrees.

"Three times there have been three days in a row of less than 50 degrees F," Zubrick said, "all at the end of the month, starting on Oct. 29." Those events occurred in 1893, 1925 and 2002. "But never four in a row."

And here we are, barely halfway through October, and we're already threatening four straight days under 50 degrees.

Zubrick also doubts that I will be able to keep my hands off the thermostat until Nov. 1, was my plan. He's already switched his furnace on at least once this month. But I have held out. So far. My wife doesn't seem to be as committed to this goal as I am. We'll see how we do this weekend. 

Anyway, we can blame a series of storm systems, some coming out of the Ohio Valley, and others developing along the coast, that are pumping cool, wet Atlantic air off the ocean. It seems like mostly drizzle for now, but forecasters at Sterling say we could see as much as a half-inch this afternoon, and another half inch tonight.

These storms will also be dragging cold air in with snow showers or freezing rain in the mountains. Snow is forecast tonight for parts of northern and western Pennsylvania, and as far south as Garrett County, Md.

The folks at Sterling expect that will make each night through early Sunday colder than the last, sinking into the 30s and increasing the chances for a wintry mix spreading beyond the higher elevations.

For late Saturday and early Sunday, they say, "the rain/snow mix could even creep into the far northwest Baltimore/Washington suburbs."  

Posted by Frank Roylance at 11:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)
Categories: By the numbers
        

Wednesday's winds, which brought down plenty of autumn leaves, not to mention branches, trees and power lines, reached 50 mph in several locations around the region. An Eastern Shore man died when his small sailboat capsized in high winds. There were gale warnings and small craft warnings on the bay Wednesday.

Here is a rundown on top wind gusts, from National Weather Services observers:

BWI:  50 mph

Urbana HS, Ijamsville: 50 mph

Charles Flowers HS, Upper Marlboro:  50 mph

US Naval Academy, Annapolis:  46 mph

Winters Mill HS, Westminster:  47 mph

Patuxent Valley MS, Savage:  47 mph

Antietam TV, Hagerstown:  47 mph

Posted by Frank Roylance at 10:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: By the numbers
        

Okay, I know there will be lots of "coldest mornings so far" as we get closer to winter, and into the coldest days of January and February. But it's these first few days of chilly readings, after a summer of balmy weather, that we really notice.

The mercury sank to 44 degrees before dawn Thursday out at BWI-Marshall Airport. That was well short of the record for an Oct. 1 in Baltimore. That would be the 36-degree low reached on this date in 1947. But it was the coldest morning in the suburbs since May 22, when it also was 44 degrees.

The low here at Calvert and Centre streets was 52 degrees. We bottomed out at 43 degrees on the WeatherDeck in Cockeysville. There was a 38-degree reading out in south-central Pennsylvania, near Shippensburg, and a few more like that in northern Virginia and eastern panhandle of West Virginia.

But mostly the lows across the region were in the 40s. Here's a map showing many of the lows.

If your weekend starts today, congratulations. You have the nicest day of the bunch to play with. We're enjoying clear, dry, high pressure, with today's high sticking in the mid-60s. But as this high moves off to our east, and we come into the return flow, warmer, wetter air will begin to rise up from the south. That will get us into the 70s, with more clouds tomorrow.

But rain chances climb late Friday, with a 70 percent chance for showers and thunderstorms on Saturday. Your autumn Saturday at the beach looks like a washout.

But things will clear off again by Sunday after the next cold front moves through. Sunday looks fine, with a high in nthe low 70s and sunshine. We'll stay good until rain chances rise again on Tuesday.

Rain would be an especially good thing for far Western Maryland. The latest Drought Monitor map, released this morning, shows all of Garrett and Allegany counties, and the westernmost part of Washington county, are now in moderate drought, making up about 11 percent of the state. The rest of Washington and the western part of Frederick county are rated as abnormally dry, adding up to nearly 19 percent of the state experiencing unusually dry conditions.

The dry weather has been building out there since mid-August, part of a wider expanse of dry territory that includes southwestern Pennsylvania and northern West Virginia. 

(SUN PHOTO/Perry Thorsvik, 1994; Hey, she looked cool and sunny... although the ice pick is kinda scary.)

Posted by Frank Roylance at 10:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: By the numbers
        

Weather watchers in Maryland noticed something odd on Monday. Their barometers were skidding to unusually low numbers, while the skies outside seemed strangely clear. Normally, when the barometer is very low, we're in the middle of a pretty impressive storm.

Fred Weiss noticed and shot me an email message from Baltimore: "What is causing this low pressure?" he asked.

I checked, and he was right. The official National Weather Service barometer out at BWI-Marshall Airport sank to 29.44 inches. Out on the WeatherDeck in Cockeysville, the console said 29.37 inches. And here at The Baltimore Sun, Calvert and Centre streets, the weather station read 29.45 inches.

Steve Zubrick, science and operations officer for the NWS at Sterling says the last time BWI saw a reading that low was back on April 7, 2009.

Anyone else make a note of their low reading for Monday?

For comparison, I checked the low barometer reading back on Sept. 19, 2003, when Tropical Storm Isabel blew through the region. The low reading at BWI that morning was 29.58 inches.  So, I checked back ever farther, to Hurricane Hazel, on Oct. 15, 1954. The low barometer that day was 28.93 inches.

So Monday's low reading was a bit lower than during Isabel, but not nearly as low as during Hazel's passage. 

So what was going on here Monday? And more specifically, why was the sun shining?

Our low barometer was caused by an intense low-pressure system that was - and still is - drifting across the Great Lakes and southeastern Canada. A trough of low pressure extends south and west from that storm center, which is what is keeping our barometric readings so low even today - Tuesday. The Sun's barometer has only rebounded to 29.69 inches at 11 a.m.

Here's a nifty satellite loop of the spinning low.

The low is rotatring counterclockwise. And on Monday morning, it was setting off torrential rains along the Great Lakes, where I was visiting my in-laws in Erie, Pa. It also touched off a band of intense showers along the I-95 corridor in the late afternoon at one point (where it whacked us again as we drove back into Baltimore.) We recorded a quick tenth of an inch here at The Sun.

The big low was also dragging a wedge of dry air in from the southwest, which gave Baltimore the sunny skies we saw for a time Monday. Meteorologists call that a "dry slot," and it's not unusual with these strong lows. You can see it in the satellite image above, now just off the East Coast.

Some clouds have moved in behind it as cooler, drier air is pulled down from the northwest around the backside of the low. 

The forecast calls for windy conditions today as the atmosphere continues to flow around the low to our north and east. But we should remain sunny, with a high near 70 degrees.

As cooler air moves in with high pressure builds into the region behind the low, we'll start hanging up in the mid- to upper-60s for the next few days.  We'll stay sunny until the next cold front approaches late Friday into Saturday. 

Continue reading "Big low over E. Canada sinks barometers here " »

Posted by Frank Roylance at 10:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: By the numbers
        

Heavy and persistent rains have swamped many sections of the Deep South in recent weeks.  It has erased longstanding drought in many spots, but replaced it with terrible flooding that has caused numerous deaths - at least seven in Georgia alone - and much property damage.

NASA's Earth Observatory has computed cumulative rain totals based on satellite observations and generated a map of the region showing where the heaviest rain was concentrated.

The lightest amounts are in pale green, the heaviest (more than 300 mm, or about 12 inches) in dark blue. Here's more.

Posted by Frank Roylance at 12:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
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The National Weather Service thermometer at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport dropped to an official 47 degrees this morning. You can credit clear skies amid dry Canadian high pressure, and radiational cooling. All the warmth we built up under Saturday's perfect blue skies just radiated back out into space overnight.

Lows in the 40s felt pretty darn cold if you went to bed with the windows open last night. But it was still 5 degrees short of the record. The coldest morning for Baltimore on a Sept. 20 is 42 degrees, last reached on this date in 1959.

The last time we were this cold at the airport was back on June 1, when the mercury touched 46 degrees.

We reached 44 degrees out here on the WeatherDeck in Cockeysville (left). And there were some even colder readings across the region - as low as 41 degrees just over the Pennsylvania line. Sunshine today will bring us back into the 70s. Another fine late-summer afternoon; of course, it can't last.

The high pressure system is moving off the coast today, and we will come into the return flow of the clockwise circulation around the center, bringing us increasingly warm and moist air.

That will mean more clouds, and eventually rising chances for rain and showers as the week rolls along. 

Posted by Frank Roylance at 9:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: By the numbers
        

 Chilly? Looks like this afternoon's official high temperature at BWI-Marshall will be 62 degrees. If so, that will be just one degree higher than the all-time "low maximum" for a Sept. 11 in Baltimore - 61 degrees, which has stood since this date in 1883.

All that and a gusher of rain, too - an inch and a half at BWI, and 1.4 inches here at The Sun.  

The sunshine returns on Sunday, of all days.

Posted by Frank Roylance at 4:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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With our reservoirs full, and a few extra bucks in our pockets thanks to cool weather in June and July, we can kiss the summer of 2009 goodbye with a smile on our faces today.

The meteorological summer ended at midnight last night, and the reality was easy to accept with that cold breeze wafting in through open windows.  Temperatures dropped to 50 degrees out on the WeatherDeck, and that extra blanket was welcome.

(Some poor toad crawled into our barbecue grille after dinner Sunday night, presumably seeking warmth from the cooling ceramic brickettes. He was still there last night when I fired it up for the salmon. It was a crispy garnish I tossed onto the lawn for whatever critters might have a taste for such things. But, I digress...)

It was 60 this morning here at Calvert and Centre streets. Out at BWI-Marshall, the official low for Baltimore was 57 degrees, just four degrees above the record low for a Sept. 1 in Baltimore, set in 1963. Here are some other low readings this morning from around the region. Plenty of 40s and at least one reading in the 30s on the map.

So how does the summer stack up?

June and July were cooler than the long-term averages for Baltimore; July especially, with an average temperature nearly 2 degrees below the norms. August warmed up, averaging 76.6 degrees, or 2.1 degrees above normal.

You can see that trend in the count of 90-degree-plus days. June had none. It was only the 6th time Baltimore's official instruments have failed to reach 90 degrees in June. It was also only the 4th time we've failed to reach 90 in May and June of the same year, and the first since 1979. The average is 7.2 days in the 90s in those two months.

July saw its first 90-degree day on the 12th, the latest date for that event since 1979. Cool nights made the news, too. The low of 58 degrees on July 14 tied the record reached in 2001 and 1895. On the 19th, the low of 57 degrees broke the 59-degree record low for the date, set in 1962.

There were four days in the 90s in July, and 6 in August as the weather finally began to heat up. That's a total of 10 for the June-August period, less than half the normal count of 25 days of 90 or more.

Steve Zubrick, science and operations officer at the NWS Sterling forecast office, says 10 days of 90-degree weather for the three-month meteorological summer ties for the eighth fewst such days since record-keeping began in 1871. All of those summers with fewer 90-plus days were a long time ago.

Summers with just 10 days of 90-plus weather occurred in four other years: 1883, 1884, 1904 and 1907.

Summers with fewer such days: 

Nine days: 1915

Eight days: 1886, 1889, 1917, 2004

Seven days:  1897, 2000.

The record for the number of 90-plus days in a Baltimore summer is 51 days, in 1988.

So we saved money on cooling, with cooling degree days ( a measure of demand for cooling energy) averaging almost 3.5 percent below the long-term average. Curiously, April had three days in the 90s, too, bringing the year's total to 13 so far.

We also recorded about 2.5 inches of surplus rain over the summer. June and August were wet, but July fell a half-inch short of the average. That all followed very wet weather in April and May, and all of it has left high water in all three of the city's reservoirs. The system is at 99.55 percent of capacity, according to the Baltimore Department of Public Works, which is extraordinary for the end of a summer that (so far) has not seen a tropical storm.

The rain totals for April through June totaled 19.74 inches, the second highest amount on record for those three months in Baltimore. The 120-year-old record is 21.69 inches, set in April-June 1889.

So, did this relatively cool, wet summer affect your outdoor activites? Is your garden out of control? Did the mosquitoes drive you crazy? Are we looking forward to cooler autumn weather? To snow? Let's hear it. 

Posted by Frank Roylance at 10:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: By the numbers
        

The 11 a.m. update from the National Hurricane Center puts the chances that winds along the mid-Atlantic coast will top tropical storm force (39 mph or more) this weekend at 20 to 30 percent.

That's the message from the tropical Storm Winds Probability Map (above) posted this morning. The actual outcome will depend, of course, on where the steering currents take Danny. The consensus keeps the storm well offshore. But it's a sprawling system, with tropical storm winds extending as much as 200 miles from the center.

High winds, even offshore, will increase the risk of dangerous surf and rip currents at the beaches this weekend. Danny is also expected to bring plenty of rain to the eastern part of Maryland this weekend, while an approaching cold front does the same for Central Maryland.

Late Thursday morning, Danny's top sustained winds were clocked at around 60 mph. That's 14 mph short of hurricane strength. But some continued strengthening was forecast for the next few days as the storm's center moves over warmer waters in the Gulf Stream.

Danny's problem has been a poorly organized center and high-altitude winds that have thwarted rapid development.

The storm's center late this morning was about 550 miles south southeast of Cape Hatteras. It was moving toward the northwest at 13 mph, but that movement was a bit erratic. Danny was expected to turn more toward the north later today, and increase its forward speed.

The storm's greatest threat may be along the New England coast and the Canadian Maritime Provinces. Here is the latest forecast advisory for Danny. Here is the forecast storm track. And here is the view from space.

While we're at it, the National Hurricane Center is already watching the next storm in the Atlantic basin. The tropical disturbance in the far eastern Atlantic is given less than a 30 percent chance of becoming a tropical storm in the next 48 hours.

Posted by Frank Roylance at 11:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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The community of North Beach in Calvert County, and the city of Annapolis have topped everyplace else west of the bay in the amount of rainfall recorded over the weekend, according to data compiled by the National Weather Service forecast office in Sterling, Va.

The showers and thunderstorms were very localized, with some spots seeing more than 3 inches of rain, while others saw less than 2 inches. Officially, BWI-Marshall recorded just 1.7 inches for the weekend.

Here are some of the totals from around the region, for the 60 hours ending at 7 a.m. Monday:

North Beach (Calvert): 6.35 inches

Annapolis (Arundel): 5.25 inches

Huntingtown (Calvert): 4.75 inches

Dunkirk (Calvert): 4.32 inches

Churchton (Arundel): 4.25 inches

Camp Springs (Prince George's): 3.96 inches

Deale (Arundel): 3.75 inches

La Plata (Charles): 3.74 inches

Montgomery Village (Montgomery): 3.68 inches

Beverly Beach (Arundel): 3.46 inches

Friendly Hills (PG): 3.43 inches

West Friendship (Howard): 3.29 inches

Glenwood (Howard): 3.26 inches

Edgewater (Arundel): 3.25 inches

There were numerous reports of flash flooding and road closures in Anne Arundel and Calvert counties on Saturday as a result of the downpours.

Got pictures? If you have a good digital photo of the weekend rain or flooding, send it along and I'll post the best. Email frank.roylance@baltsun.com

Some slight rain chances will linger late Monday and Monday night. But the rest of the week looks dry and sunny, with the warmest temperatures coming at mid-week, with a Wednesday high near 90 degrees. After that, a cold front will push through, sending daytime highs back to the more seasonable low 80s. Rain chances will rise again for the weekend.

Posted by Frank Roylance at 8:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Yesterday's thunderstorms delivered an inch of rain at BWI-Marshall Airport, the most in one day since July 31. We recorded 1.3 inches here on the WeatherDeck in Cockeysville, and just over an inch at The Sun building at Calvert and Centre streets downtown.

The CoCoRaHS network reported an astonishing 9 inches of rain yesterday in Ridgely, over in Caroline County on the Eastern Shore. Here are some other totals reported by the group:

Denton, Caroline Co.:  3.31 inches

Sykesville, Howard Co.: 2.84 inches

Clarksburg, Montgomery Co.: 2.75 inches

Towson, Baltimore Co.:  1.8 inches

St. Michaels, Talbot Co.: 1.53 inches

Ellicott City, Howard Co.: 1.32 inches

Forecasters out at Sterling say there is more to come. With the ground saturated in places by Friday's rains, they have posted flash flood watches all across central and southern Maryland today and through the evening (green area on map). More showers and storms will cross the region ahead of an  approaching cold front with another 1 to 3 inches of rain possible.

Posted by Frank Roylance at 10:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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This week's official Drought Monitor map shows 48 percent of Maryland - from roughly the I-95 corridor south and east - is now experiencing "abnormally" dry conditions. It is the third week in a row that some portion of the state has been dry, following a wet spell that had produced normal moisture conditions statewide since April.

The impact of the current dry weather in Maryland is reported to be primarily agricultural.

The Drought Monitor map is based on a variety of measurements of rainfall, soil moisture, water levels and the health of vegetation.

Posted by Frank Roylance at 8:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
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Temperatures at BWI-Marshall Airport Thursday reached 94 degrees, making it the hottest day of the year so far, and only the fifth day in the 90s in 2009. Hot as it was, it was far from a record. The hottest July 16th on record for Baltimore is 104 degrees, set in 1988.

It was 96 here at The Sun, and 91 degrees on the WeatherDeck in Cockeysville. Here are some more high readings from across the region.

We're not likely to see the likes of that again for a while. Forecasters are expecting plenty of clouds today, with a 60 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms - some of them severe - after 3 p.m. Portions of the state east of the mountains will face the highest threat from storms and high winds. A Severe Thunderstorm Watch has been issued for the entire region, in effect until 5 p.m. ARTSCAPE exhibitors take note!

The clouds and storms will also keep the temperatures in check, with a forecast high of 89 at BWI.

There are more showers and storms on tap for the region tonight as low pressure tracks along the cold front that has stalled across the region. The weekend looks better (or worse, if your grass is brown and your tomatoes are thirsty), with only a slight, lingering risk of rain on Saturday. Sunday looks pretty sunny, with highs through the weekend pleasant, in the mid-80s. Better for Artscape.

The new work week will bring a revived, but still small chance for some badly needed rain just about every day. Temperatures will hold slightly below normal, in the low- to mid-80s.

One other note: After a long period of quiet, the tropics have perked up a bit. The National Hurricane Center is watching a stormy area of the far eastern Atlantic Ocean (right) for possible signs of development. It's given only a small chance of developing into a tropical cyclone in the next few days, but it's really the first action we've seen in the Atlantic basin since the 2009 hurricane season began June 1.

Posted by Frank Roylance at 10:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: By the numbers
        

The thermometer out at BWI-Marshall Airport touched 58 degrees this morning. That tied the record low for a July 14 in Baltimore. The last time we sank to 58 degrees on this date was in 2001, but there were other, prior years when we touched the same mark.

The lowest reading on record for Baltimore in July is 50 degrees, set on July 1, 1988 and again on July 3, 2001.

It was even colder than 58 elsewhere across the region. It was 53 degrees this morning at Dulles International Airport in northern Virginia. Hagerstown reached 57 degrees. It was 53 degrees on the WeatherDeck in Cockeysville.

Martinsburg, WV reported 49 degrees this morning. It was 47 degrees at York (Pa.) Airport. 

Here are more readings around the region. Looks like 42 degrees was the lowest, out near Garrett County. We're headed for the mid-80s this afternoon, with very low humidities. The relative humidity here at The Sun at noon stands at 35 percent. The high temperature will crowd 90 by Thursday.

Go figure.

(SUN PHOTO/David Hobby July 2005)

Posted by Frank Roylance at 10:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: By the numbers
        

That was one chill breeze coming in the bedroom window this morning. Reminds me of summer in New England. It was only 54 degrees at daybreak on the WeatherDeck in Cockeysville. And there were some colder readings than that across the region. York, Pa. reported a low of 50 at the airport.

It was 56 early this morning at BWI-Marshall Airport. That was within 2 degrees of the record low for a July 9 at BWI. The 54-degree reading there was set on this date a quarter-century ago - in 1984.

There was a low of 64 degrees at Washington Reagan. Dulles Airport, out in northern Virginia, reached 58 degrees. It was 58 in Hagerstown, too.

All this as we approach what is, on average at least, the hottest two weeks of the year.

Here are some other low readings from across the region. (Check the date on the map; the 7/9 data had not been loaded at the time of this writing.) 

The forecast continues to look just fine. The seasonable weather is expected to continue, with some heating-up, and a chance of showers and thunderstorms over the weekend. But the first half of next week looks a lot like this week - mild temperatures and dry weather.

Posted by Frank Roylance at 8:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: By the numbers
        

So you'll be sitting around the lunch table at work today, and you'll raise your cup of diet soda and call for a toast: "Here's to the magic of numbers, and to this magic moment in time: 12:34:56 p.m. on 7/8/09."

Your friends and co-workers will be amazed at your mathematical acumen, and your acute awareness of your place in the space-time continuum.

Either that, or you will be greeted with blank stares, and people will begin to leave the table, claiming to have pressing work to attend to.

Just remember, you heard it here first.  

Posted by Frank Roylance at 11:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: By the numbers
        

June is back in Baltimore, and with it comes the likelihood of some really hot weather. The sun reaches its highest arc in June, and record highs poke into the 100-plus range for the first time in the year.

Not that we haven't already seen some heat this year. With all this rain and cloudy weather, it's easy to forget that we had three straight days in the 90s in April. That 90-degree heat wave arrived before we had even seen our first days with highs in the 80s.

The average highs for June in Baltimore rise from 79 degrees on June 1 to 86 degrees by the end of the month. The average lows rise climb from 57 degrees to 64.

Record highs are all in the upper 90s and low 100s during June. The hottest June day on record for the city was 105 degrees on June 29, 1934. Imagine THAT without air-conditioning! The coolest June day never got above 54 degrees. That was on June 1, 1907. The coldest reading in June since record-keeping began in 1871 was 40 degrees, on June 11, 1972. Our low of 46 this morning at the airport was plenty cool, but we can pretty much forget readings in the 30s until fall.

The wettest June day on record was June 28, 1885, when 4.47 inches fell on the city. But the wettest June on record remains June 1972, the month the remnants of Hurricane Agnes blew through town. That June saw 9.95 inches fall at BWI. The driest June was in 1954, with only 0.15 inch at the airport.

The oldest June record still standing was a sweltering June 20, in 1873, when the mercury never fell below 78 degrees.

The earliest sunrise of the year will occur on Sunday, June 14, with Sol rising over Baltimore at 5:39 a.m. EDT.

The Summer Solstice this year occurs a week later, at 1:45 a.m. EDT on Sunday, June 21. The sun will rise here on that day at 5:40 a.m. EDT, setting at 8:37 p.m., providing 14 hours and 57 minutes of sunshine.

May ended last night as the second-wettest on record for Baltimore. The precipitation totaled 8.42 inches. Here's how it stacked up against the wettest Mays:

May 1989:  8.71 inches

May 2009:  8.42 inches

May 2008:  7.77 inches

May 1894:  7.26 inches

May 1960:  7.10 inches

May 1886:  7.07 inches

Posted by Frank Roylance at 11:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: By the numbers
        

Lots of records broken on Tuesday as Gulf and Atlantic moisture continue to flow into the region and run up against the stalled cold front draped across the Northeast.

BWI recorded 2.28 inches yesterday, washing away the previous record for a May 26 - 1.72 inches, set way back in 2001.

There was a new record set, too, at Reagan National Airport. They received 1.65 inches, beating the old record of 1.49 inches set there in 2003. And out at Dulles International, they more than doubled the old record of 1.59 inches, set in 2002. The total at Dulles yesterday was 3.59 inches.

We have now erased the rainfall deficit accumulated since the first of the year at BWI. The year-to-date total is 17.95 inches, beating the long-term average of 16.68 inches. But we still trail last year's total of 19.78 inches through May 26.

There are no sunny days in the forecast until Saturday. But while we will likely see drizzle and showers and perhaps some thunderstorms for the rest of the work week, they are not likely to produce to sort of rain some of us saw yesterday.

The rain was spotty. Here are some of the heaviest totals from across the region:

Continue reading "The wettest May 26" »

Posted by Frank Roylance at 8:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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The morning low out at BWI this morning reached 38 degrees, setting a new record for a May 19 in Baltimore. The previous record had stood for only six years, having been set on this date in 2003.

The National Weather Service has not posted it yet (at this writing). But I've called it to their attention, so it may pop up in their data shortly.

The low out on the WeatherDeck this morning was a bracing 36 degrees. With the heat off for the season, the blanket and spread were not quite enough for us this morning as the dawn broke. Getting up seemed the better choice. 

Here at Calvert & Centre streets, the low was 46 degrees. There were no new records at either Dulles International (low was 38 degrees, record 36), or Reagan National (low was 45 degrees, record 43). 

The high-pressure system that moved into the region late yesterday (left) had shoved all the clouds away by this morning (see satellite photo above) and dried out the atmosphere. As winds died down around sunset, that set up the perfect conditions for radiational cooling. So much of the meagre warmth we accumulated yesterday radiated back into space overnight, driving temperatures down.

The relative humidity readings today are headed rapidly downward - from 78 percent around sunrise to 44 percent at this writing (and still falling). The barometer, meanwhile, has been headed in the opposite direction, holding steady now at around 30.50 inches.

The forecast shows we can expect temperatures to warm to around 80 degrees by tomorrow, and hang around that mark right into the weekend. The sunny skies will linger, too, at least until Sunday, when chances for showers and thunderstorms begin to rise again.

Continue reading "Morning cold breaks record" »

Posted by Frank Roylance at 9:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
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We had a pretty hard rain out on the WeatherDeck in Cockeysville last night. The rain gauge clocked about seven tenths of an inch. There was less here at Calvert & Centre streets - about 0.35 inch on the meter. And the airport reported only seven hundredths.

As the rain fell, I found myself listening to the water gurgling down the gutters and downspouts. Am I the only one who finds the sound somehow soothing? I'm not sure whether it's some atavistic reassurance that there is fresh, running water nearby - a babbling brook - or that our shelter is keeping us all dry. Or maybe it's just comforting to know that all the dough we spent on gutter caps this spring is paying off, and keeping the gutters and downspouts clear of leaves and oak flowers and other crud.

Anyway, it was very pleasant. It was also good to hear the 12-year-old sump pump working as it should. Is there anything worse than water in the basement? Thinking of putting in a new one, just in case. What's the life expectancy on a sump pump? 

Here's a listing of rain total reports from around the state. Looks like Prince George's County had the big numbers, with Oxon Hill reporting 1.7 inches.

At the halfway point, May has yielded more than 4 inches of rain at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport. We're at 3.23 inches here at The Sun. And there is more to come.

The National Weather Service forecasters out at Sterling are predicting "slight" chances for thunderstorms this afternoon, rising to "likely" on Saturday afternoon, with as much as a half-inch possible. There are more showers in the cards for Sunday morning before the atmosphere finally begins to clear out after the stalled frontal system that's causing all this instability moves off.

Next week still looks sunny and pleasant, with highs rising from the 60s to the upper 70s by Wednesday and Thursday.

Posted by Frank Roylance at 10:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: By the numbers
        

Steve Zubrick, the science and operations officer for the National Weather Service's Sterling Forecast Office has been snooping around in Baltimore's weather records again. He's found that the very wet start to May we just survived was one for the record books:

"Some facts about the recent wet spell we all loved...

"BWI had measurable precip. (at least 0.01") each consecutive day for May
1st - 7th (2009).

"For what it's worth (and we don't keep records on this), this was only
the second time since record-keeping began that Baltimore started the
first full week of May with 7 consecutive days of measurable rainfall.
The other time was May 1998...and in that year (1998)...the first 12
days of May 1998 had measurable rain.

"And...the 3.88" of rain measured during the 1st week of May this year
(2009) was the most rainfall ever measured in Baltimore during the 1st
full week (7 days) of May. Runner-up was 3.66" that fell the first week
of May 1989 (although not in 7 consecutive days)."

Posted by Frank Roylance at 8:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: By the numbers
        

Once again the thermometer surged to 91 degrees at BWI, but once again it lacked the oomph to break past that mark and tie the record for the date - 92 degrees on April 27, 1994.

The same thing happened yesterday. We made it to 91 at BWI, but fell short of the record for that date - again 92, set on April 26, 1990.

But we did notch up a third April day in a row in the 90s today. It's only the fourth time since records began in 1871 that's happened, according to Steve Zubrick, science officer at the National Weather Service forecast office at Sterling. The previous occasions were in 1976 and 1929, and in 1960, when we managed to string together FOUR straight days in the 90s - April 23-26, 1960.

Tuesday's forecast high is 88 degrees. The record for the date is 90, set in 1957. 

It was 93 at the Inner Harbor today, by the way. And we reached 96 degrees here at The Sun.

Dunno. I may be forced to switch on the AC tonight to cool down the house. Anybody else out there still keeping hands off the thermostat? Hot as it's been, the nights have been cool. By morning under an open window it's been quite chilly.

At least it's dry. The relative humidity here at Calvert & Centre is only 27 percent.

Posted by Frank Roylance at 5:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (13)
Categories: By the numbers
        

BWI has received just 3.79 inches of precipitation so far this year, and barely an inch since Jan. 29. We've had only 1.87 inches in 2009 on the WeatherDeck in Cockeysville.

National Weather Service forecaster Andy Woodcock, out at Sterling, had these observations this morning about the dry weather:

"AS OPPOSED TO THE NEAR RECORD FLOODING ONGOING IN THE UPPER MIDWEST...IT IS
CERTAINLY WORTH NOTING HOW DRY THIS YEAR HAS BEEN SO FAR. \

"AT BWI AND IAD (DULLES) THIS HAS STARTED AS THE DRIEST YEAR ON RECORD...AND BALTIMORE`S RECORDS GO BACK 139 YRS. DCA (REAGAN NATIONAL) IS 4TH DRIEST ON RECORD.

"SOMETIMES I BRING THE ADAGE "WHEN IN DROUGHT LEAVE IT OUT" INTO THE DISCUSSION WHEN REFERRING TO PRECIPITATION FORECASTING. THE FLIP OF THAT IS "IT TAKES A FLOOD TO
BREAK A DROUGHT." THAT ONE HASN`T ALWAYS WORKED..AND PREFERABLY WON`T THIS YR...BUT TIME WILL TELL. IN MEANTIME FIRE THREAT IS A GREATER CONCERN.

"WHAT WE COULD USE IS A COASTAL LOW THAT SITS OFF OF ORF (NORFOLK) FOR A FEW
DAYS...BUT THAT ISN`T COMING IN THE NEXT WEEK. HIGH PRESSURE ALONG THE EAST
COAST ON TUES AND 1ST PART OF WEDNESDAY. BEST CHANCE FOR PRECIPUTATION W/ THE WEAKENING COLD FRONT WOULD PROBABLY BE ON WEDS NIGHT...BUT SO FAR THIS YEAR FRONTS TRACKING ACROSS THE COUNTRY HAVE HAD THE TENDENCY TO DRY UP AS THESE REACH
THE APPALACHIANS...AND MY SUSPICION IS THIS MAY HAPPEN AGAIN.

"PERHAPS A BETTER CHANCE OF PRECIPITATION NEXT WEEKEND...BUT W/ LOW TAKING
MAJORITY OF THE ENERGY INTO THE GREAT LAKES I REMAIN SUSPICOUS."

Posted by Frank Roylance at 8:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: By the numbers
        

The overnight low at BWI-Marshall this morning was a balmy (for March) 60 degrees, just after midnight. Temperatures have been rising ever since, and will take a long time falling tonight. That puts another record at risk.

This time it's the record high minimum for March 8 - the warmest low temperature for any March 8 on the books since record-keeping began here in 1871. Here's how science officer Steve Zubrick, out at the Sterling forecast office, put it to me in an email this morning:

"FYI...if our forecast for BWI holds...looks like we have a shot at breaking the record Hi-min for today...March 8.

"The current record is 52F (2000). The overnight low at BWI was 60F...and our hourly temperature forecast grids only drop to 58 by midnight tonight (Sun night).

UPDATE: The low temperature for March 8 at BWI was 54 degrees, setting a new record high minimum for the date.

"Tomorrow's record Hi-min of 56F set in 1921 appears safe...again if our forecast is good...temps should be falling sharply tomorrow (Mon) evening and into the overnight as the stationary front to the north sags south of the Balt. metro area. late Mon.

"Steve Z
SOO-NWS WFO Sterling"

Cool! Or is it "Warm!" ?

Continue reading "Another record threatened in Baltimore" »

Posted by Frank Roylance at 12:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: By the numbers
        

The impact of the Chesapeake Bay on local weather has never been more apparent than it is this afternoon. As temperatures rise into the 60s and 70s across the region, the mercury is stuck at 45 degrees in Annapolis, as of the 3 p.m. reading.

The Annapolis reading comes from the U.S. Naval Academy, which is right on the Severn River where it enters the bay. Water temperature at the Thomas Point Light is 38 degrees.

Glenn L. Martin Airport, on Middle River, is reporting a chilly 54 degrees, even as BWI chimes in at 64 degrees. The Sun's station at Calvert and Centre streets read 65 at 3 p.m..

Here is a list of 3 p.m. readings from across the region:

Washington National: 64 degrees

Dulles International:  67 degrees

BWI:  64 degrees

Charolottesville, Va.:  70 degrees

Fredericksburg, Va.:  66 degrees

Winchester, Va.:  73 degrees

Annapolis:  45 degrees

Hagerstown:  71 degrees

Martin Airport:  54 degrees

Martinsburg, W. Va.:  71 degrees.

Baltimore Sun:  65 degrees

Posted by Frank Roylance at 3:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: By the numbers
        

That crash you heard this morning all over Baltimore was the sound of another record falling. This morning's low of 10 degrees just before dawn at BWI-Marshall Airport was the coldest official reading on a March 3 since record-keeping began in 1871. It shattered the previous record of 12 degrees, last reached downtown on this date in 1925.

And if you were outside in the wind for any length of time this morning, you appreciated just how cold that was. It's just not supposed to feel that bitterly cold in March.

And we're not likely to see the wet side of freezing at all today. The forecast high is just 27 degrees. That, too, will see us flirting with a record. The coldest high temperature on record for a March 3 in Baltimore is 26 degrees, set on this date in 1960. 

Forecasters are calling for a low tonight of just 11 degrees. No record will be in jeopardy, however. It was just 5 degrees in Baltimore on March 4, 1873.

It's been quite a week for weather records in Charm City. On Saturday we set a new record low for precipitation in February - a mere .26 inch at BWI. On Monday we set a new record for snowfall on a March 2 in Baltimore - 4.7 inches. That beat the previous record of 3.7 inches set back in 1969. There was 8.3 inches by 10 a.m. yesterday in Annapolis, where Sun photographer Ken Lam captured the image above.

Hate snow? Can't wait for spring? Well, have a look at this delightful gallery of snow photos from the Spruce Hill photo blog, and try to remember the magic.

Here are more snow tallies from across the region. And here are several interesting temperature readings around noon Eastern Time today: Jacksonville, Fla. - 50 degrees. Atlanta, Ga. - 37 degrees. Helena, Mont. - 44 degrees.

The good news is that we are headed up the slope toward more springlike weather by the weekend. We are under a very strong, very cold dome of high pressure. Highs circulate clockwise, so as this high moves east, we'll lose the cold northwest winds and come into the return flow of warmer breezes from the south by Wednesday. 

The forecast calls for daytime highs to reach 53 degrees by Friday, just above the normal high for this time of year at BWI. Saturday could reach 57 degrees, and Sunday could hit 60. (Who remembers it was 65 at the airport last Friday?)

We should be looking at sunshine throughout the period (and good stargazing, especially tonight), with no rain in the forecast until showers threaten on Monday. 

Posted by Frank Roylance at 11:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: By the numbers
        

The forecasters out at Sterling have posted their snow forecast map for accumulations from mid-day yesterday.

Looks like Calvert and St. Mary's counties top the actual tallies with 11-12 inches. Yesterday's Winter Storm Warning called for 6 to 10 inches. Not a bad call from the looks of this map.

Got this note from Science Officer Steve Zubrick:

"Frank...

Our official NWS total snowfall forecast from yesterday at noon. Port Republic, MD in Calvert Co. reported 11 and 12 inches from 2 observers there. Arlington VA had 2 reports of 8". Herndon VA (my house) in NW Fairfax Co had just over 6".

Steve Z"

In case you missed it, BWI set a new record on Saturday: February 2009 was the driest February on record for Baltimore. Only 0.26 inch of precipitation fell during the month, breaking the old record of 0.36 inch, set in the drought year of 2002.

Another record was broken today. The 5.8 inches of snow that fell today broke the old record of 3.7 inches for the date, set back in 1969.

Today's snow will help put a little moisture back into the soil and the water table.

Posted by Frank Roylance at 9:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: By the numbers
        

Somehow, in the middle of winter (okay, we're past the middle), with nothing growing, it's hard to grasp that this has been, so far, the driest February on record for Baltimore. But it has. Barely 0.24 inch of melted precipitation has fallen so far this month.

The stingy dribbles we've received at the station of record (BWI) have been few and far between. There were traces on six dates, and measurable amounts on just three dates:

Feb. 3:  0.04 inch

Feb. 11:  0.08 inch

Feb. 18:  0.12 inch

The snow was even scarcer - 0.6 inch in just two events, on the 4th and the 18th, plus two days when mere traces of flakes were recorded at BWI.

This could all change before the month finally ends on Saturday night. Forecasters out at Sterling are predicting a "slight chance" of showers Thursday night, followed by "likely" (70 percent chance) showers on Friday, tapering to 30 percent Friday night.

In all, they're calling for as much as a quarter- to a half-inch of rain on Friday as warm, moist air moves in with a warm front from the South, all ahead of the next cold front. Even if the forecast holds up, February 2009 would still deliver less than an inch of rain total, and would still rank among the 10 driest Februaries since record-keeping began in Baltimore in 1871. Here are the Top Ten Dry February rankings:

2009 (so far):  0.24 inch

2002:  0.36 inch

1978:  0.56 inch

1977:  0.63 inch

1901:  0.65 inch

1968:  0.72 inch

1991:  0.73 inch

1895:  0.83 inch

1974:  0.94 inch

1925:  0.98 inch

The lack of precipitation has expanded the proportion of Maryland that is now rated as "abnormally dry" to encompass more than half the state, basically from Baltimore south on both sides of the Chesapeake Bay. Here's last week's Drought Monitor map. This week's map comes out tomorrow morning.

Posted by Frank Roylance at 10:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
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Today's windstorm has caused widespread damage as trees and limbs brought down power lines, struck homes and crushed cars. It even contributed to the partial collapse of an empty building at 1226 Argyle Ave., in Baltimore (above). Read more here.

Here are some top gusts recorded by WeatherBug stations across the region:

65 mph:  Rockville

63 mph:  Urbana High School, Ijamsville

60 mph:  Rocky Hill Middle School, Clarksburg

59 mph:  Montgomery County DPW, Poolesville

57 mph:  Winters Mill High School, Westminster

56 mph:  Maryland Science Center, Baltimore

56 mph:  Mt. Airy Christian Academy, Mt. Airy

54 mph:  Anne Arundel Community College, Hanover

54 mph:  Montgomery Blair High School, Silver Spring

52 mph:  Bowie State University, Bowie

52 mph:  St. Martin School, Gaithersburg

53 mph: BWI Marshall Airport (NWS report)

National Weather Service reports described trees and power lines down in Carroll, Montgomery, Washington and Allegany counties. Baltimore County schools reported a tree down at the Chatsworth School in Reisterstown around noon today. Eight cars were damaged. Five were undrivable.

Posted by Frank Roylance at 4:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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The high temperature of 65 degrees Saturday at Dulles International Airport set a new record for the date, topping the old record of 59 degrees, set in 2005.

At BWI, the Saturday high of 62 degrees fell just short of the record - 64 degrees, set in 1904.

Today's record high temperature at BWI is 70 degrees, set on this date in 1965. The forecast high for this afternoon is 67 degrees. It was 64 degrees at noon.

Posted by Frank Roylance at 12:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: By the numbers
        

The coldest morning in years.  BWI was reporting 2 degrees this morning. It's not a record. It was minus-7 degrees on this date in 1982 - equaling the coldest reading on record for Baltimore on any date. But it was a remarkable low - the lowest in many years.

Here (as soon as Sterling gets around to updating it) will be a low-temperature map of the region. We can say that BWI saw a low of 2 degrees. National Airport was 9 degrees. Dulles Airport touched 1 degree (as did the WeatherDeck in Cockeysville). Charlottesville, Va. reported minus-1 degree.

Here's the forecast. And here's this morning's weather discussion from Sterling.

I will be on the go today. Will try to post your comments ASAP. Bundle up!

Posted by Frank Roylance at 8:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)
Categories: By the numbers
        

They said we would struggle make 20 degrees today, and they were right. The high recorded this afternoon at BWI-Marshall was a mere 18 degrees. It was also 18 just after midnight. The overnight low this morning was 10. We'll likely go lower tonight, but maybe not before midnight.

The Science Center high was also 18 degrees.

The record low for a Jan. 16 in Baltimore is 1 degree, in 1893. The record low maximum for the date is 14 degrees, set on the same day in 1893. So no record was broken.

Here at The Sun's weather station at Centre and N. Calvert streets, our high this afternoon was 17 (after a high for the date of 18, after midnight). The low was 13 degrees. Again, we may see a lower minimum before the day ends at midnight. It's only 16 as I write this at 5:10 p.m.

Send me your readings. Be sure to say where you are. I'll post them as soon as I see them.

BTW, the Sterling folks have also trimmed their forecast for Saturday's high temperature. Once predicted to reach 30 degrees, the high is now expected to go no higher than 22 degrees - just 4 degrees warmer than today. If you're headed to the ObamaRama at City Hall, bear that in mind. It will be frigid.  

Posted by Frank Roylance at 5:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)
Categories: By the numbers
        

That was bracing! Overnight lows ranged from around minus-8 degrees out in Garrett County, to about 11 degrees in Aberdeen. Here is a map with National Weather Service observer reports.

We recorded a low of 10 degrees out on the WeatherDeck in Cockeysville. The mercury here at The Sun's weather command center was 12.4 degrees, which held pretty steady until 10 a.m. The low out at BWI Marshall Airport was 10 degrees, reached just before 7 a.m.

And as if that weren't enough, the forecasters at Sterling say we're in for even colder lows tonight, after a day that will struggle to top 20 degrees - about 20 degrees below the long-term average for the date. The forecast low for BWI tonight is just 7 degrees. That would be the coldest since an 6-degree morning back on Jan. 10, 2004. 

The good news is that skies tonight will be crystal clear under this huge, dry arctic high-pressure system parked over the eastern half of the country (left).Last night's sky was crammed with bright winter stars, and the evening commute home was graced by the brilliant planet Venus, high in the southwestern sky. Venus is near its highest position this winter, setting a full three hours after the sun. Turn to the east and you can admire the bright stars of the constellation Orion, with his familiar three-star belt. I went up the street to get the mail last night, turned and headed back to the house while gaping at the night sky. Got so distracted I walked right past my own house. Beautiful.

From here the weather will warm a bit - rising nearly to the freezing mark Saturday afternoon in advance of the president-elect's visit to Baltimore. If you're going, dress warmly, then add another layer. Hours of standing in the sub-freezing cold will take a toll on you, and in that crowd, it will not be quick or easy to get to someplace warm.

Continue reading "Brrrrr !! And colder tonight !" »

Posted by Frank Roylance at 10:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
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Sure, there were some pretty brisk winds in Maryland on New Year's Eve. They forced the postponement of the fireworks at the Inner Harbor.

But the peak gust at BWI was 51 mph. Imagine a gust to 132 mph, and average winds above 90 mph. That's what they recorded on top of Mt. Washington in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Here's how Mike Clark, the blogger at the Mt. Washington Observatory described it:

"Well, perhaps windy is an understatement. For 21 hours yesterday, a wind gust of at least 100 mph was recorded with the peak for the day being 132 mph. Perhaps even more impressive was the fact that for 9 hours, the average wind speed for those hours exceeded 100 mph with a peak hourly average wind speed for the day of 111 mph.

"Remember, that is not a wind gust, that is an average wind speed for an entire hour. The average wind speed for the entire day was 92.3 mph. That average would have probably been 100 mph if winds hadn't diminished to around 70 mph for the last 3 hours of the day. Also impressive was the overall gustiness of the wind, or the difference between peaks and lulls. For most of the day, winds would lull to around 40-60 mph and then gust over 120 mph in mere seconds."

NOTE: The world's highest recorded surface wind speed was clocked at the observatory on April 12, 1934 - an astonishing 231 mph.

Continue reading "And you thought Dec. 31 was windy ..." »

Posted by Frank Roylance at 5:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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December ended with a windy, frigid flourish that (mercifully) postponed the New Year's Eve fireworks at the Inner Harbor until the next night (above). Sustained winds on Dec. 31 peaked at 38 mph at the airport, with gusts to 51.)

But on the whole, the month was a bit milder than the long-term average for Decembers at BWI-Marshall Airport, with even less than the scant 1.7 inches of snow that is the December average. Traces were noted on seven other dates. Western Maryland saw far more from storms blowing off the Great Lakes.

That's not to say we didn't have our wintry cold snaps. After a mild start, December sank into a four-day cold spell in which daytime highs got stuck in the 30s for three days (Dec. 6-8). Lows reached the high teens, with the month's low of 18 degrees touched on the 6th. That period delivered the only measurable snowfall for the month, the meager 0.6 inch that fell on Dec. 6.

Things warmed up after that, with highs of 66 degrees at the airport on Dec. 10, and 67 degrees on the 15th. There was more cold weather just before Christmas, with temperatures averaging 12 or 13 degrees below the long-term norms, on the 22nd and 23rd.

But readings warmed into the 50s and 60s on six dates beginning on the 24th. The month's high was 69 degrees, recorded on Dec. 28.

So, on average, the month ended 1.8 degrees above the long-term norms. Precipitation was slightly below. Twenty-seven dates were rated as cloudy or partly cloudy. But we saved a bit of cash on our heating bills, with heating degree-days ending about 6.2 percent below the average for BWI.

January is our coldest month, with average highs of just 41 degrees before they begin to rise again on Jan. 30. The average low sink to 23 degrees from the 11th through the 26th before they begin to climb again toward spring.

The average snow total for a January in Baltimore is 7 inches, our snowiest month over the long haul. But we've had that much snow or more in January only four times in the last 20 years:

January 1996: 32.6 inches

January 2000: 23.1 inches

January 2004: 8.4 inches

January 2005: 7.6 inches

That's about one in four years. Seems like we're due, no?

Posted by Frank Roylance at 11:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: By the numbers
        

Be thankful if you didn't have to be outdoors for more than a few minutes today. The mercury topped out at 30 degrees this afternoon at BWI, failing to reach the freezing mark for only the third day this year. That may say more about how mild last winter was than anything else. And it was far from the record for the date: High - 23, low 10, on Dec. 8, 1882.

But it does underscore how cold it's been in December - more than 5 degrees below normal for the month so far.

Here are the three dates we've failed to reach freezing in 2008:

Dec. 8:  High - 30 degrees; Low - 19 degrees

Jan. 21: High - 28 degrees; Low - 8 degrees

Jan. 3:  High - 31 degrees;  Low - 18 degrees

The forecast looks better for a few days, and downright balmy (63) on Wednesday. Then things get cold again, with snow and rain in the forecast for Thursday and Friday.

Posted by Frank Roylance at 7:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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November departed overnight, its meteorological numbers settling into the record books very close to the long-term averages for BWI. The only category that departed a bit from the 30-year norm was rainfall, which fell about a half-inch short.

First, the temperatures. Lots of us may remember November 2008 as being unusually cold. That's mostly because the last half of the month fell persistently below the averages. From the 17th to the 29th, only one day saw above-average temperatures. The coldest (and clearest) was the 22nd, when the mercury at BWI-Marshall struggled to reach 36 degrees, and sank to 24 degrees, for an average of 30, which was 14 degrees below normal for the date.

The cold days allowed the region its first snowflakes of the season (above). We saw traces at BWI on the 18th, 21st and 25th. That gave us an average of, well, a trace for the month. The average for November at BWI is 0.6-inch.

The cold weather also cost us a little bit extra on our heating bills, with the number of heating degree-days (a measure of heating demand) about 2 percent above the average for November.

The cold spell was offset, however, by the warm start we saw. The first week of November saw highs in the 60s and 70s, with lows only in the high 40s and 50s. The 6th and 7th averaged 14 degrees above the long-term averages for the dates.

On balance, BWI averaged 45.4 degrees for the month, just a tenth of a degree below the long-term average.

As for precipitation, most of it fell as rain from the 12th through the 15th, with a total of 1.56 inches over those four days. The rest of the month generated barely an inch more. The month's total of 2.61 is 0.51 below the average for a November at BWI.

Only one day in November (the 22nd) was rated as "clear" by the weather service. Nine were cloudy, the rest partly cloudy. 

Anybody else out there with a barometer notice how low it fell yesterday? Ours here at The Sun sank to 29.31 inches around 11 p.m. last night before it turned around. It's climbed only to 29.57 as I write.

We can thank the intense low-pressure center now over the Great Lakes, headed toward Quebec. That storm system is influencing conditions throughout the eastern half of the country, dumping snow on Chicago, rain here and up the coast, and forcing NASA to land the shuttle Endeavour in California because of bad weather at Cape Canaveral.    

Posted by Frank Roylance at 10:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
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We used to call this Irish mist. Dew points are at or near the temperature readings, pushing relative humidities into the high 90s to 100 percent this morning. That means fog and drizzle across the region. The fog delayed school openings on the Eastern Shore, while wet streets and slick leaves slowed the ayem rush. 

Feels like Ireland.

Rain totals yesterday ranged from a half to one inch. The highest totals were scattered across the region, as far-flung as Thurmont in Frederick, Dunkirk in Calvert, and Brandywine down in Prince George's County.

We clocked just under a half-inch here at The Sun, after we got the station up and running again. The weather service's station at BWI-Marshall reported 0.8 inch by midnight. We had 0.6 inch out on the WeatherDeck in Cockeysville.

By tomorrow, the next cold front will be moving through, bringing more widespread showers - another inch, perhaps, before it's over - and perhaps some thunderstorms and gusty winds. Behind the cold front there's sunshine right through next Thursday, but also a sharp change in temperatures. Cold Canadian air will push all the way to the Gulf of Mexico, with a reinforcing cold front on Monday. The western slopes of the Alleghenies could see snow. Our temperatures by daybreak on Tuesday will be in the mid-20s.

Nothing like Ireland.

Posted by Frank Roylance at 10:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Many locations west of the I-95 corridor received more than an inch of rain on Saturday. One would guess that the heavy rain helped bring what had been a very dry October more into line with the long-term averages. It sure helped.

But for many locations, including the official station at BWI Marshall, we remain very dry for the month. High winds during the height of the storm yesterday afternoon reached 20 mph at BWI, with gusts to 29 mph, resulting in thousands of power outages. Only a few thousand  of the 20,000 or so affected by the storm are still without power this morning.

Here are some unofficial rain totals from CoCoRaHS:

Thurmont:  1.56 inches

Taneytown:  1.44 inches

Sykesville:  1.40 inches

Cockeysville:  1.36 inches

Ellicott City:  1.32 inches

Fallston:  1.26 inches

Columbia:  1.12 inches

Towson:  .81 inches

Crofton:  0.68 inches

Pasadena:  0.53 inches

Easton:  0.38 inches

Out at BWI they recorded just 0.72 inches, bringing the month's total to only 0.84 inches. That is 1.73 inches below the average for the month through yesterday's date. If we get no more rain through the end of the month (Friday), which seems likely, this would become the fifth-driest October for Baltimore since 1963: 

October 1963: Trace (record)

October 2000:  0.08 inch

October 1978:  0.71 inch

October 2001:  0.78 inch

October 2008:  0.84 inch

Posted by Frank Roylance at 9:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: By the numbers
        

It was starting to feel a little chilly around the edges at home this morning, and I confess I thought about turning on the heat to take the edge off. But I didn't. It was 37 degrees out on the Weatherdeck in Cockeysville, but still in the high 60s inside. Still no excuse for burning dollars and pumping more CO2 into the air.

That day is coming. I usually cave before Nov. 1. But the outlook is for some warming in Baltimore through the rest of the week, so I know I can get through the next week or so.

Still, while it was still quite mild near the bay and the ocean, the temperatures dropped sharply last night north and west of the city. BWI still hasn't recorded a night in the 30s this fall, but others have. Here's a sampling of some overnight lows:

BWI: 41 degrees

The Sun (downtown Baltimore):  47 degrees

Annapolis:  51 degrees

Ocean City:  50 degrees

Reagan National (DC): 50 degrees

Dulles International:  42 degrees

Hagerstown:  38 degrees

Martinsburg, WV:  36 degrees

Frederick:  34 degrees

York, PA:  33 degrees

Here's a NWS map with some more observations.

Tonight should be clear, a good opportunity to catch the International Space Station as it orbits from high over Lake Michigan and Central Virginia to the Outer Banks. The times are slightly different than those we published in the print editions on Sunday. That's because the Russians gave the ISS an orbital boost over the weekend, increasing its altitude and thereby putting it about a minute behind the previous flyby schedule.

Watch for a bright, star-like object to rise above the northwestern horizon at 8:01 p.m. It will climb about two thirds of the way up the southeastern sky by 8:04 p.m. It will pass high above the moon and Jupiter and very close to the bright star Altair in the Summer Triangle before vanishing abruptly into the Earth's shadow at 8:05 p.m.

As always, come back here after watching the ISS, leave a comment and share the experience.

Posted by Frank Roylance at 1:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: By the numbers
        

Thirty days hath September, and 10 of them this year produced at least a little rain, according to the National Weather Service. Seven produced heavy rain, and the total - 7.22 inches by midnight last night - made September 2008 the 13th wettest September on the record books for Baltimore. Those books go back 137 years, to 1871.

("Normal" September rainfall for Baltimore is 3.98 inches, the region's wettest month.)

It was the wettest September at BWI since, well, since last year, when the airport instruments recorded 7.56 inches. Here are some other September totals for the last half-century.

1999:  11.50 inches (the second-highest September rainfall)

1975:  8.62 inches

1966:  8.50 inches

2007:  7.56 inches

2003:  7.47 inches

1987:  7.34 inches

2008:  7.22 inches

There were six more Septembers with higher totals than 2008 - all before 1936. The highest was in 1934, when 12.41 inches were recorded for the city.

The 7.22-inch total for last month exceeded the long-term average by 3.24 inches - nearly equal to a month's normal rain fall for Baltimore. All of that and more fell on Sept. 27, when airport instruments recorded 3.57 inches in 24 hours from an Atlantic storm.

Temperatures were also above average by 2 degrees. The high was 93 degrees on the 3rd and 4th. The low at BWI was 49 degrees, on the 21st.

Now it's October's turn. Average daytime temperatures sink from 73 degrees to 62 by month's end. The average lows drop from 50 degrees to 39 degrees. But almost anything can happen.

October's record highs linger in the 90s until mid-October. The record lows are in the 20s and 30s. The coldest October day in Baltimore reached 25 degrees in 1969. 

This is also the earliest month for snow in Baltimore. Yes, snow. Smile, Baltimore, it's that time of year again.

The earliest recorded snowfall for the city was on Oct. 9, 1903, when a trace was reported. The earliest measurable snowsfall was on Oct. 10, 1979, when 0.3 inch was noted at the airport. The most recent October snowfall was the trace that fell on Oct. 22, 2003.

But October snows have never been anything to worry about. The deepest on record was 2.5 inches of the White Death. It fell on Oct. 30, 1925.

If you really want to break some sort of historic weather record this month, pray for 2.23 inches of rain on Oct. 25. That would break a rain record for that date that has stood unassailed since 1872, the year after they started recorded the weather for Baltimore.

Posted by Frank Roylance at 10:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: By the numbers
        

Somehow, I managed to be on my way to Pittsburgh while the heavens were opening up on Severn, Baltimore, Towson and Cockeysville on Saturday. I posted once early in the morning before we left, and again from the road a couple of times, but a slow hotel connection hobbled my efforts. Suffice it to say it was a very impressive display by Mother Nature. But if you were here, you already know all that. Here are a few of the rainfall totals for the three-day storm:

Towson: 5.36 inches

Cockeysville:  4.56 inches

Hamilton (in Baltimore City): 4.50 inches

BWI: 4.15 inches 

Severn:  4.28 inches.

Blame the Atlantic low that went ashore in South Carolina, turned and wandered slowly up the Appalachians over the weekend.

The street flooding here was dramatic in the usual low spots in Cockeysville (Beaver Run and York Road) and down along the Jones Falls in the city and county.

Here is a more comprehensive rundown on rain totals.  The September total for BWI is now 6.73 inches. That's almost 3 inches above the norm for BWI in September, but a long way from the record of 12.41 inches, set in September 1934. 

Posted by Frank Roylance at 10:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Well, July is finally behind us, and it was a wet one. The bulk of the month's rain, of course, fell on one day - the 2.42-inch deluge on Wednesday, July 23 (see photo). That was the official total at the airport. Other locations will have different numbers. We had only 1.4 inches on the WeatherDeck in Cockeysville, and 1.89 inches here at Calvert & Centre streets (until the weather took our station off-line).

The month's total rainfall came to 5.47 inches at BWI. That was 1.62 inches above the long-term July average for the airport, and it continues what is now a four-month stretch of extra precipitation that has added 7.39 inches of surplus to our totals for BWI.

For the year since January, we are now running a 4.61-inch surplus. Only January and March saw deficits.

July was also notable for its heat. The average temperature for the month at BWI was 77.5 degrees, one degree above the 30-year average. Yesterday, with a high of just 84 degrees at the airport, was the third-coolest day of the month.

At no time in July did the airport fail to top 80 degrees. There were 10 days in the 90s - equal to July 2007. That brings the total for the summer to 19 days - two more than last year. But we're running well behind 2006, when we'd had a total of 24 days in the 90s by the end of July (with 13 more to come in August of that very hot summer).

The airport high for the month was 94 degrees, on the 20th. The low was 59 degrees, on the 25th. The longest stretch of hot weather was a seven-day streak of 90-plus days, between the 16th and the 22nd.

Only five days in July were rated as cloudy. Two were clear. The rest were "partly cloudy."

We're two-thirds of the way through the meteorological summer now, but only one-third through the hurricane season, which doesn't peak for another month. So far, so good. Look for a chance for showers or thunderstorms Saturday and Saturday evening. Otherwise, we seem to be stuck in a long stretch of sunny days, with highs near 90 degrees. Sunday will be the best of the batch - sunny and 86 if the forecast holds up.

Watch Sunday's paper for details on a nice pass by the International Space Station, which will fly almost directly over Baltimore - very bright - on Tuesday evening Aug. 5, and then vanish. The long-range forecast calls for mostly cloudy skies that night. We'll see. 

Posted by Frank Roylance at 10:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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In the middle of a punishing heat wave 72 years ago today, somebody up at the Northern Police Station on Keswick Road in Baltimore, had the bright idea of seeing how hot it was in the direct sunlight.

Now, it was plenty hot in the shade. The temperature had reached 103 degrees the day before -  July 9. Baltimoreans were collapsing in the streets, and at work. Twenty-eight had swooned by the 10th, as a heat wave swept much of the nation, killing 331. Most people had no access to air conditioning in those days. Hundreds moved to the city parks in search of a good night's sleep.

By the next day, the papers said, the national toll had climbed to 658 souls. By some accounts, the Great heat Wave of June and July 1936 was the deadliest natural disaster in U.S. history, with as many as 5,000 killed. It was worst in the Midwest. In Baltimore, they counted one dead - a 10-day-old infant found in his crib - and 44 "prostrated." Frederick reported a high of 109 degrees - still the state record.

Here's the NWS account. And, for what it's worth, Wikipedia's.

BG&E offered Evening Sun readers Westinghouse electric fans "as low as $2.98." Stewart's urged customers to "step out of the heat into cool comfort" with "Misses' Chiffon Frocks with Slips" for $5.99.  

Anyway, according to The Evening Sun's account of the police experiment, officers moved the thermometer to a sunny windowsill and waited. "Up went the mercury to 100 degrees - 105! - 110! - 120! On that thermometer 120 degrees was the maximum marking, but the instrument seemed determined to go higher or bust. Well - It busted!"

Over at the Northeastern Precinct, they tested the temperature in the "cooler," and found that prisoners were enjoying a relatively chilly 83 degrees.  Out on a lamp post in front of the station it was 110 degrees.

In the 200 block of W. 29th St., the Evening Sun reported (nothing was too small to make the paper in those days) a carrier pigeon dropped from the sky. He took a drink from a rivulet emerging from a hose, rested a bit, then moved to a windowsill to spend the night. Revived by morning, he resumed his mission.

At 3 p.m., the National Weather Service reported a high temperature of 107 degrees at the U.S. Customs House in downtown Baltimore. It was a new record for the city, breaking the 105-degree mark set on Aug. 6, 1918. The new record has never been broken .

Posted by Frank Roylance at 8:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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The showers that passed through Baltimore this afternoon dropped more than a third of an inch of rain on The Sun's weather instruments at Calvert & Centre streets. It fell as fast as 3.3 inches an hour at one point. Here's the radar loop.

The storm also sent the thermometer plummeting - down 14 degrees in less than an hour, from 89 degrees at 5 p.m. to 75 degrees just before 6 p.m.

You can see it all online.

We'd love to hear how the storm was where you are. Leave us a comment. Send us pictures.

Posted by Frank Roylance at 5:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: By the numbers
        

We're a bit late here taking a look back at the weather for Baltimore during the past month. Just threw out the last wedding guests.

After a cool and very wet May, June at BWI resumed the warm pattern that has prevailed here since the beginning of the year. Temperatures at the airport averaged 75.3 degrees last month. That was 3.5 degrees above the long-term average of 71.8 degrees, and made it the warmest June since 1994, and the fourth-warmest in Baltimore in 65 years.

1943:  79.8 degrees

1994:  77.2 degrees

1949:  75.6 degrees

2008:  75.3 degrees

So far this year, only May ended cooler than the norm.

Precipitation was close to the June average for BWI, at 3.70 inches. The long-term average is 3.43 inches. Ten days saw measurable rainfall.

The high temperature for the month was 96 degrees, on the 10th. The low was 52 degrees, on June 18. No new records were set.

Not unexpectedly, given the warm temperatures, we ran well ahead on cooling degree-days, a measure of the demand for energy for cooling. We were up 34 percent over the average for June.

Looking ahead, July is typically our hottest month, with average temperatures peaking third week in the high 80s. The all-time record high temperature for Baltimore is 107 degrees, set on July 10, 1936. Only 7 dates have record highs of less than 100 degrees.

The coolest record daily high for the month (and therefore the easiest record to break) is 97 degrees, set on July 12, 1908 and July 24, 1987.

The record low for the month in Baltimore is 50 degrees, set on July 1, 1988 and again on July 3, 2001. The warmest record low is 59 degrees, set July 19, 1962.

The wettest July on record for Baltimore was in 1889, when 11.03 inches fell. The driest was in 1955, with just 0.3 inches in the gauge.

Posted by Frank Roylance at 10:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Okay, so it will never rival the National Weather Service, or even the BWI data available in the Almanac section of MarylandWeather.com.

But our data archive here at The Sun's little Davis Vantage Pro 2 weather station (like the one at left) is slowly expanding. We have today managed to upload measurements taken between Jan. 1, 2008 and the present, which you can access here.

Next, we plan to upload all the readings we've gathered since the station was established at Calvert & Centre streets, WAY back on Sept. 6, 2006. It's a slow process. It takes about a minute for each day of data, so we will likely have to leave the computer running overnight.

The kink in the system is that, while we're uploading, we can't post current data. That means once the old numbers are moved, we have to go back and recover the readings that we couldn't upload in real time. Then we have to upload those, which means more current data is delayed.  Arrrgghh!

So be patient with us. We're working on it.

In the meantime, if you need to know the barometric pressure at 3:10 p.m. on Feb. 16, 2008 (it was 30.31 inches), or for any other 10-minute interval since Jan. 1, you can look it up here for free. 

The Sun station data has been accessed more than 2,800 times already. Is this Weather Geek Heaven, or what?  

Posted by Frank Roylance at 5:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Another chilly day for Central Maryland today as the high at BWI stalled  at the 56-degree mark. That is 20 degrees below the normal highs for a May 20 in Baltimore, and just three degrees above the all-time low maximum temperature for a May 20 in Baltimore - 53 degrees, set on this date in 1994.

The high here at Calvert & Centre streets managed to climb all the way to 57 degrees after the sun came out.

Back on May 12 the high at BWI was just 50 degrees, and that did set a record for the date, breaking the 126-year-old record of 51 degrees, set in Baltimore WAY back, on May 12, 1882.

They're calling for a low tonight in the 40s. It's great we haven't had to run the AC yet this year. But we sure did have to throw another blanket on the bed last night. The low at BWI this morning was 44 degrees, just five degrees warmer than the all-time record low for the date - 39 degrees, set in 2002.

So far, we're running almost 2 degrees cooler than normal for the month. Rain is way ahead. We're at 7.52 inches so far through today, making this the second-wettest May on record for Baltimore. The record is 8.71 inches, set in May 1989.  May rainfall has topped 7 inches only three other times:

1894:  7.26 inches

1960:  7.10 inches

1886:  7.07 inches

But warmer, drier days are coming. The new forecast from Sterling says the highs this weekend will stretch into the 70s, and to the 80s in time for Memorial Day. That's - well above the mark predicted in earlier forecasts. 

 Freckles seeks shelter from light rain during Memorial Day observances in Timonium in 2004. Sun photo by Glenn Fawcett.

Posted by Frank Roylance at 5:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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The National Weather Service forecast office out at Sterling, Va., has issued a revised rainfall map covering all five days of showers and downpours from May 8 through 12. It's pretty darned impressive, especially if you live in Calvert County or parts of Anne Arundel, Prince George's County and Northern Virginia, where there seem to be patches with more than 8 inches. Feast your eyes: 

Posted by Frank Roylance at 10:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
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The heaviest rain is moving off to the northeast, but here the drip goes on. We have another half-inch of rain in our rain gauge this morning here at Calvert and Centre streets. That's about what they've receive down at BWI, too. But the airport is well ahead of downtown Baltimore in total rain for the month to date. And they could be headed for a record-wet May.

Chris Strong, the NWS warning coordination meteorologist out at the Sterling forecast office, reports this morning that BWI received 6.17 inches of rain between May 1 and midnight last night. Since then the airport has recorded another .56 inch. That's 6.73 inches in all. And it's only the 16th of May. (The long-term average for May in Baltimore is 3.89 inches.)

Here are some other measurements across the region. Some spots have seen more than an inch.

The record precipitation for a May in Baltimore was 8.71 inches, set back in May 1989. So if we can squeeze out another 2 inches in the next 15 days we'll have a new record.

"It's possible .... 8.71 inches certainly wouldn't be out of the question," Strong said.

Why not? We're already well ahead of the pace when compared with May 1989. In that month, the airport had recorded 5.52 inches by May 16. We've seen 6.73 inches - the most ever here for the first 16 days in May, Strong said.

The creeks are rising again. Here's the streamflow map.

And it's been a month of records. Consider:

May 9: Record rainfall for the date - 1.85 inches. That beat the 1.41 inches that fell on the date in 1919.

May 11: Record rainfall for the date - 1.49 inches. That was more than the previous record of 1.28 inches set on May 11, 1924.

May 12: A record low maximum temperature. The thermometer at BWI reached just 50 degrees Monday afternoon.  The previous record was 51 degrees, set way back, on May 12, 1882. The previous record at BWI, where official observations began in 1950, was 57 degrees, set on May 12, 1960.

May 12: Record rainfall for the date - 2.20 inches, besting the 2.06 inches that fell in 1921.