Weather Headlines
A beautiful array of orographic clouds capping the High Knob Massif, which contributed to heavy weekend rains, lingered into Monday morning as seen from our weather research webcam at UVA-Wise.
Unseasonably cool conditions will continue with widespread 30s at elevations above 3000-3500 feet, amid abundant clouds on upsloping NW winds, into Tuesday morning. The coldest air temperatures in mountain valleys are expected Wednesday morning when mostly clear skies and light winds will support low-mid 30s (30 to 35 degrees) in colder valleys at middle-upper elevations.
Two different atmospheric settings will generate these cold temperatures, with cold air advection (transport) + adiabatic upslope cooling working to generate 30s at upper elevations into Tuesday morning as cloud bases lower (the freezing level will drop to around 4800-5000 feet such that highest peaks on the windward facing side of highest mountains could form a little rime) versus more classic cold air drainage + radiational cooling under clear skies, light winds, and low dewpoint air that will support cold mountain valley conditions into Wednesday morning (allowing Appalachian frost pocket locations, which are capable of dropping into the 30s or even below freezing during any month of the year, to realize their potential). High mountain ridges will tend to be coldest into Tuesday AM versus high mountain valleys on Wednesday AM.
Monday felt like winter in the high country of the High Knob Massif as low-mid 40s combined with low clouds and gusty NW winds to generate wind chills as cold as 30 to 35 degrees into the afternoon hours of May 13. Ditto for the summit level of Black Mountain.
For those keeping track, this is not surprisingly part of a repetitive Spring 2019 pattern that will feature another surge of warmth, with showers and thunderstorms by late this week into early next week, that is again followed by another cool surge toward the middle of next week. That is the current trend, and given this repetitive pattern it has better than even odds of verification, although, sooner or later this cycle will be broken and conditions which can be called summer will finally set up shop with less radical temperature fluctuations in the mean.
The latest rain event boosted 2019 totals to between 32.00″ and 33.00″ in the City of Norton, at the northern base of the High Knob Massif, and to between 35.00″ and 40.00″ within wetter locations at upper elevations in the massif (15.00 to 18.00″+ during Meteorological Spring).