Atlanta Dodges Cold Bullet - For a While
I hope you had a chance to get outside this Thanksgiving weekend to enjoy the spectacular late fall weather. While the 10 degree above normal shirtsleeve weather in the afternoon is what many folks notice, we’ve also had overnight temperatures about ten degrees cooler than normal - giving us, at least for statistical purposes, ‘normal’ mean temperatures. The 40 degree difference between morning lows and afternoon highs is the result of clear skies and low humidity, which causes the day’s heat to be lost, radiating into the atmosphere overnight.
It now looks like North Georgia may miss the next cold wave, which is now in the Northwest, and will move East this week. While earlier forecasts called for below normal temperatures, and even the chance of some freezing rain next Thursday or Friday, the front is moving slower than originally predicted, and will run up against high pressure over the Atlantic. This will keep the worst of the cold to our northwest, and give us seasonable temperatures for the week of December 4th.
Even though we may not get caught up in this cold spell, there is another one right behind it that –if long range models are to be believed– could bring frozen precipitation early the week of December 10th. The picture to the left is the GFS forecast for the Southeast for 7 AM on December 11th. The lower blue line marks 32 degree temperatures, while the middle blue line represents 14 above zero. The top blue line, running through Illinois, represents 4 degrees below zero.
The green areas represent precipitation over a six hour period, with the lightest color calling for a tenth of an inch, and the slightly darker color, which covers Atlanta, represents 1/4 inch of precipitation, which given the temperature, will probably be snow.
Of course, this scenario is 15 days away, and is subject to change, so don’t start thinking about snow days quite yet. By this time next week, we’ll have a much better idea of what’s going to happen, however it’s a safe bet that the cold weather won’t stay away forever.
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