HPC Puts On Their Skates

Taking a quick glance of data this morning concerning Sunday-Monday and the possibility of freezing rain.  Last night’s European computer model (ECMWF) continues to be bullish on the potential whereas NOAA’s global forecast model (GFS) is downplaying the icing side.

One thing the models are in agreement about, rain, heavy at times, will fall Saturday night through early Sunday morning.  A cold front will be slowly moving through Missouri, Illinois and Indiana at the time.  There will be shallow cold air behind the cold front while a few thousand feet up in the atmosphere winds out of the southwest will keep temperatures above freezing.  There are two big questions at this time:

1. How long will water be available?
2. Where will be the location of the cold front?

Most likely, just north of the front will see freezing rain.

The Hydrometeorological Prediction Center is getting in on some of the freezing rain chatter.  There latest Day 3 Freezing Rain Probability Forecast and Day 3 Freezing Rain Accumulation Forecast is out and includes parts of Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois and Indiana.  The images below look at the Saturday night through Sunday morning time frame.

24-Hour Probability of Freezing Rain Accumulation 0.01”+:

Click the image to see larger version.

24-Hour Probability of Freezing Rain Accumulation 0.25”+:

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48-Hour Freezing Rain Accumulation – 95^th Percentile:

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Notice how HPC keeps the freezing rain out of western Kentucky, southern Indiana and northeast Arkansas.  The European computer model has the freezing rain going further south in to those areas.

Will the models continue the way of the GFS, keeping the freezing rain away, or will they lean towards the Euro, hinting at an ice storm?  We’ll have to wait and see what the runs come in with over the coming days.

FREAK-OUT-METER:

• Southeast Missouri: 3
• Southern Illinois: 3
• Western Kentucky: 2
• Central Indiana: 2
• St. Louis metro: 3

We've Been Cold For How Long?!?

2010 has really started off on a cold note and it looks as though we are going to remain cold for the next several days.

The high temperature at the Cape Girardeau airport has been below freezing (32°F/0°C) every hour of the new year. We can even go back a couple of hours in 2009 to start our cold streak. The last time we were above freezing was at approximately 2:45pm CT December 31, 2009.

As of 3:00pm CT today, the temperature at the Cape Girardeau airport was 16°. That means the streak continues at 192 hours at or below freezing.

To give some perspective as to how cold we have been this month we are 13.5° below average per day (through January 7). That equates to a temperature deficit of 94.5°.

Now the question everyone wants to know... When will it start to warm back up? To answer that, lets take a look at temperatures from one of the computer models.


I have drawn in the 32° line (approximately) on the image above. Follow the red line from right to left and see when it touches or goes above the line.

It looks as though we might get near 32° by Monday afternoon. If not Monday, it appears that Tuesday would be a best shot. If this is the case, we will add anywhere from an additional 72 hours (Monday afternoon) or 96 hours (Tuesday afternoon) to our temperature streak. That would take our consecutive at or below freezing streak to 264 hours or 288 hours.