May 5, 2018

Scorcher

Current Conditions

Temperature: 78 °F
Dew Point: 36 °F
Winds: W 8 mph
Pressure: 1012.2 mb
Visibility: 10 miles

What a beautiful day, just the kind of weather that makes you want to sit inside a testing center for 5 hours am I right? Just kidding, that's a big no, but it couldn't be helped. What most people did was go outside and enjoy the 80 DEGREE WEATHER. You heard right. What a great day. Skies were clear early this morning and the temperature only continued to climb throughout the day. The high pressure dome is still in the area which is creating those clear skies (figure 1).

Figure 1. Surface map of the United States.

There is a small bit of cloud cover now but it shouldn't be making any precipitation. With how warm it was today, I would guess that the cloud cover we're experiencing is due to convection and not a separate moisture source. Speaking of the warm temperatures, we can thank the jet stream for pulling those up from the Gulf (figure 2).

Figure 2. Jet stream map over the United States.

If you look back to my past couple of posts, you might notice that the jet stream is slowly shifting eastwards, which may mean cooler temperatures in the future. We'll have to wait and see what actually happens though.

Previous Prediction

Yesterday's prediction was correct with a high temperature of 80 °F and clear skies. I for one am happy to see this prediction come true.

Prediction

Tomorrow skies will again be clear with no fronts in sight, but the temperature might cool off a bit with a new high pressure dome moving into the area (figure 3).

Figure 3. Prediction map for April 6, 2018.