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The Story Behind the Weather - By Forecaster John
Ensworth M.S. -
The Discussion of Weather Events Daily for Philadelphia and Pennsylvania
Last updated: 09/23/2003 05:04 PM
Good Morning Philadelphia!
I'm sorry to announce that these discussions will end at the end of September. They are taking up a HUGE amount of server space. If you REALLY want them to continue, email me. Otherwise feel free to use the archives as teaching tools. There are many good case studies in there - including
Skies are clearing out nicely after the beating we received overnight. Strong winds and heavy rain was the theme as you tried to sleep, but now all that is out to sea to the east.
Winds are blowing briskly out of the west at the present time, behind the cold front.
And cool temperatures (70's around us) are bulging down into the western parts of the state.
Last night, yet MORE rain fell - especially to our west AGAIN. Yes, more flooding for those poor people out there. There is a broad swath of 2" rainfall amounts with isolated 3" totals. Incredible rain in the western highlands outside the city.
We also had a few minimal tornadoes associated with that front, and strong damaging winds in the area. (Tornadoes = red dots, Strong Wind reports = blue dots).
This front (in the last 24 hours) dumped an inch or more of rain over most of the eastern third of the country...
Looking at the entire last week, that gives places in the deep south and east coast 8" of rain over very wide areas. We could do with a change in weather pattern for a while!
On the surface map, you can see the cold front just on the coast at this hour and a high pressure system nudging in from the southwest.
The next system to effect us will be another cold front edging towards us Thursday morning.
By Thursday night, the chance of rain is here again.
The showers continue through Friday morning...
And the front stalls over us carrying us with a chance of rain into Friday night. Water water everywhere.
Enjoy the next 48 hours of dry coolish weather.
Stay dry and I'll see you tomorrow morning.
Meteorologist John Ensworth
Surface Station sky cover color key:
Flight category definitions:| Category | Ceiling | Visibility | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Low Instrument Flight Rules LIFR* (magenta circle) |
below 500 feet AGL | and/or | less than 1 mile |
| Instrument Flight Rules IFR (red circle) |
500 to below 1,000 feet AGL | and/or | 1 mile to less than 3 miles |
| Marginal Visual Flight Rules MVFR (blue circle) |
1,000 to 3,000 feet AGL | and/or | 3 to 5 miles |
| Visual Flight Rules VFR+ (green circle) |
greater than 3,000 feet AGL | and | greater than 5 miles |
| *By definition, IFR is ceiling less than 1,000 feet
AGL and/or visibility less than 3 miles while LIFR
is a sub-category of IFR. +By definition, VFR is ceiling greater than or equal to 1,000 feet AGL and visibility greater than or equal to 3 miles while MVFR is a sub-category of VFR. |
|||