Saturday, September 10, 2011

First Widespread Frost / Possible Freeze Far Northern Plains Next Week...

A surge of cold air is expected to drive South into much of the Northern Plains and Midwest by the middle to end of next week. Below is the latest GFS model forecast, valid 2am CDT on Thursday, 9-15-11:


I've drawn the front on the model image, which will bring the coldest air so far this season to places like the Dakotas, Minnesota and the Great Lakes region by the end of the week.

A widespread frost is likely and a freeze is possible within the blue outlined and hatched area on the top half of the image below (valid Thursday morning, 9-15-11):


The front will spread Southward into much of the adjacent Plains, Midwest and Ohio Valley through next weekend (GFS image below valid 7am CDT Friday, 9-16-11):


...which promises to bring cooler than normal temperatures across much of this region by that time (though not of the frost/freeze variety).  The images below show the expected "departure from normal" with respect to the average temperature for Friday (1st map) and Saturday (2nd map) of next week:



Greatest departure from normal, and therefore the coolest temperatures, can be expected in the darker blue shaded areas on the above images.

It does appear that this cool down will be relatively short lived, with temperatures forecast to rise back to near normal levels across much of the same region by the first of the following week (9-19-11):


Unfortunately, as you can see throughout all of the above, there is no major relief in site for Texas, with respect to either temperatures or precipitation.


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2 comments:

Shamrock said...

Poor Texas! Rob, has it ever been this bad? I am praying for rain for you guys and cooler temps.

Rob White said...

Shamrock,

That depends on what set of records you're looking at. Without a doubt, we haven't seen the drought and heat conditions this bad across such a large part of Texas since at least the "Dust Bowl" days.

The sooner this ends, the better!