“Back To School”
By From the Archives
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Hello to everyone in the East!
Since moving to North Carolina just two years ago, it seems I have gone “back to school” and relearned different weather patterns that I was never accustomed to seeing when forecasting in the New York/New Jersey area. Due to our latitude, longitude and topography of the East, summertime forecasting seems to be more active day to day, yet repetitive as well and as a result, slightly more interesting than the winter months. Don’t get me wrong… we still have a rain / snow line in Eastern North Carolina ( which lines up pretty well with Interstate 95) and within every ten years we have the opportunity to receive a healthy dose of snow, but the pressures that come along with a winter forecast seem not as challenging to me. Most of the time, due to the proximity of the warmer Gulf Stream off our coast, we receive a gentle or steady rainfall when a storm forms off our coast or is moving parallel to it, while Raleigh has to concern itself with more of an icy situation.
On the flip side, summer forecasting is a bit more challenging and when it comes to trying to pick out what counties will receive the typical afternoon thunderstorm, it becomes very interesting as your on your toes as to which county will be the recipient of severe weather. In order to put together a solid forecast, I have to learn were the different areas of most unstable air reside on a day to day basis. For example, one day a sea breeze will be most active as a south and southwest wind pushes the more stable air over the water inland where temperatures are warmer and more unstable, allowing for Cumulonimbus clouds to form and trigger thunderstorms. Another day the “Piedmont Trough” will set up and trigger thunderstorms to our west which will then drift across Interstate 95 and into the East. With each passing summer afternoon, we always have an opportunity to see thunderstorms, something that was not always the case forecasting north of the Mason/Dixon Line. J Hopefully through time, I have become a better forecaster to the region and in return helped to serve the public to the best of my potential. Feel free to respond with a comment to this blog and I look forward to bringing you the best forecast I can on a day to day basis!
Best Wishes, Scott.
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