HEADLINES NWS ISSUES FORST ADVISORIES FOR SOME PORTIONS OF VA MF - NC FOR WED ORNING MODEL DATA KEEPS TEMPS OF 20-25 DEGREES WEDNESDAY MORNING FOR western NC mountains all of southwest VIRGINIA all of the SHEHNANDOAH VALLEY All of WVA All of western and Central MD All of southwest and south central PA ** 2 ND FROST POSSIBLE FOR THE SHEANANDOAH VALLEY THURSDAY MORNING 4/17??*** ====================================== This will be the second to last forecast update with regard to the frost and freeze potential for the far western areas of North Carolina entire Shenandoah Valley including southwest Virginia... Western and central Maryland... and the eastern half of West Virginia.
As I am sure you know by now NWS - the NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE- has issued Frost watches and warnings for much of central Virginia. This is also the case ofr western NC. However officially the FROST watch does not extend into the Shenandoah Valley. The argument that the NWS is using is that the growing season in the valley begins AFTER April 15 and therefore that the cold temperatures Wednesday morning are not occurring in the growing season over the Shenandoah Valley and a FROST watch is not needed. This is classic case of NWS stupid thinking. In some ways it is similar to the type of idiotic thinking that they exercised with th hurricane Ssandy in their decision not to issue hurricane watch is for the New Jersey Coast. In the case of Ssandy they use a technical argument from their official policy to avoid issue hurricane watches / warnings for was obviously a severe hurricane headed for the New Jersey Coast. And this case while it may be technically true that the growing season does not begin until April 15 west of the blue ridge mountains it is simply too close and two important to make that assessment based upon a single day. In other words NWS is saying that if this same weather pattern where to occur April 18 or 20 as oppose to say April 16.. that NWS would be issuing a frost watch for the Shenandoah Valley. I just do not understand that line of thinking. The early Tuesday morning short range models continue to trend some of colder especially to the west of the Blue Ridge mountains. Even the warmest of the weather models... the European... still shows temperatures into the middle 20s s across all of the Shenandoah Valley and southwest Virginia on Wednesday morning and Low 20s over the eastern portions a West Virginia and into the southwest areas of Virginia between Bristol and Roanoke. The area of uncertainty continues to be the Piedmont areas of western North Carolina and central Virginia...between the Blue Ridge and Interstate 95. The European model remains the warmest year with temperatures staying above 32 in Richmond Fredericksburg and Washington, DC on Wednesday morning. Most of the other shore range models have temperatures below 32 in these locations with some of them showing temperatures into the upper 20s
This first image shows a comparison between the old version GFS and the older version of NAM Model. This gives forecast as a fairly good idea of what temperatures that look like Wednesday morning. As you can see over Central Virginia up toward wash and DC temperatures will be close to 30 or 32. Also the very cold temperatures and eastern portions a West Virginia Southern and Central Maryland and in southwest Virginia are very pronounced. In the Shenandoah Valley these two products show temperatures in the upper 20s. Even in locations such as Winchester the temperatures don't drop below 28 However we have more accurate with better resolution short range models which we can look at here. The model a left hand side is the regular or standard 12KM NAM Model... In on the right hand side is the high resolution 4km NAM. Notice how the temperatures from the Blue Ridge mountains westward are substantially colder on these models. This be cause these high resolution models are able to pick up the small scale features which will allow the cold air to get trapped west of the blue ridge during the overnight hours into Wednesday morning. We can see the Washington, DC is temperatures now down to 25 rich
and drops down to 28 of both of these models. In addition the Shenandoah Valley itself we see locations such as Luray at 24 degrees Staunton 23. Charlottesville 27.Roanoke Virginia 23 Wytheville 21 degrees. and Upper teens in east central WVA up into western MD. Finally hears the high resolution short range Canadian model from early this morning. This model does not show the actual individual temperatures instead you have to look of the COLOR GUIDE and interpret the temperature ranges. Here I have superimposed the thin blue line to show temperatures of a least 28 or colder by Wednesday morning to the west and northwest of this line.
The next full update of the around 3:00 PM TUESDAY.
There will be at several updates on this situation. I strongly urge you not to rely on computer generated nonsense forecast that you get from weather web sites such as Accuweather or The Weather Channel or Weather underground. All one has to go is take a look at their awful Winter forecasts or last year s hype driven Hurricane hysteria forecasts and that should more than enough to remind you how bad they are. If you wish get Free samples of the kind forecasts I can produce for your SPECIFIC locations and /or more information about this potential FROST please feel free to e-mail me at the address below or on 804 307 8070. Besides this particular frost scare and the potential 2nd event around April 24... we also have to deal with the developing El Nino which is going to come on like gangbusters and be a problem for the second half of the Summer and the Autumn. I would be more than happy to come out to your vineyard and take a look around and show you the various kinds of detailed forecasts I can produce which will help you stay ahead of the weather and could potentially save you from the big money problems. DT wxrisk.com OFFICE 804 715 8330 CELL 804 307 8070