The Cumberland Post

The Cumberland Post
My Backyard, Six Miles from the Cumberland River

Thursday, January 24, 2013

Some Wicked Weather This Way Comes

Right now, the sun is shining and it looks beautiful outside. But it's a cold 34 degrees F with an 8 mph wind out of the North. And there's this:


Winter Weather Advisory

URGENT - WINTER WEATHER MESSAGE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NASHVILLE TN
1000 AM CST THU JAN 24 2013

...FREEZING RAIN AND SLEET EXPECTED IN THE MID STATE LATE TONIGHT
AND FRIDAY...
...WINTER WEATHER ADVISORIES ARE IN EFFECT BEGINNING AT MIDNIGHT
TONIGHT...

.A COLD FRONT WILL APPROACH THE AREA TONIGHT...WITH MOISTURE
INCREASING AHEAD OF IT. MOISTURE WILL OVERSPREAD A COLD AIR MASS
ALREADY IN PLACE...WHILE THE ATMOSPHERE A FEW THOUSAND FEET UP
WILL BE WARMING. THIS WILL PRODUCE PRIME CONDITIONS FOR FREEZING
RAIN AND SLEET. TEMPERATURES AT THE GROUND WILL GRADUALLY WARM
LATE TONIGHT AND FRIDAY AND CHANGE MOST OF THE PRECIPITATION TO
RAIN. HOWEVER...THE PERIOD OF TIME WHEN SURFACE TEMPERATURES ARE
FREEZING...WILL BE THE TIME WHEN ICE ACCUMULATION ON TREES AND
POWER LINES WILL BE LIKELY...AND GLAZING OF ROADS WILL BE
POSSIBLE. EASTERN AREAS WILL LIKELY HAVE THE LONGEST PERIOD OF
FREEZING RAIN AND SLEET AND...AS A RESULT... SOME OF THE LARGER
ICE ACCUMULATIONS.



5 comments:

  1. Maybe I'm weird (maybe?) but I don't mind icy roads. I think they're fun when traffic is light. But I'm *not* into tree branches breaking under weight of ice and snapping power lines. Blackouts pretty much McSuck.

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  2. Amen, Inno. It's the threat of power loss that worries me.

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  3. I hope the Weather Gods take pity on you, or at least keep the worst away. I've been in some hellacious ice storms and there's not much worse in the weather world... well, except for tornadoes and hurricanes.

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  4. I've discovered through the years that these dire predictions from local weather people generally are worst-case scenarios. For winter storms, I look for rising temperatures which will melt ice and movement of the jet stream that has weather moving around us (the satellite map is useful). The reason the local TV outlooks are always so dangerous-sounding is because the stations want us viewers to keep watching them. The last two "ice events" predicted for Middle Tennessee I scoffed at, checking the temps and realizing it would be too warm for any freezing on the road. The first scare was ridiculous because the ground was very warm from unseasonably high temperatures preceding it and ice would melt immediately. Today, no ice came our way that I could see other than maybe a little patch very early. Rain or ice, drivers should be cautious, which many here aren't. Of course, I'm originally from Iowa where we knew COLD and ICE when it hit us. I know in the past here we've had a brutal ice storm or two but they are always obvious ones. Weather watching has always been a subject of great interest to me. Maybe I'm just a frustrated weather girl.

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