The Strongest Cold Front Of The Season Heading Our Way!

November 19th, the average high temperature is 56 degrees. Ok now you are probably wondering why I am talking about November highs? Well that is how cold it will be for part of the weekend, oh and did I mention that will be the high temperature for part of the weekend? Let's talk about this front!

 

Major Cold Front Organizing

 

This front is quite frankly the first "winter" looking cold front of the year. It is currently producing snow over Montana and will likely spread winter precip through Minnesota over the next day or so. Winter advisories are posted along the northern tier states.

 

 

Notice the cold temperatures already pushing south into Montana and this cold air has our name all over it.

 

 

Let's start to look at the surge of air from the GFS. I can tell you the GFS and EURO are very much in agreement on how this storm will evolve. Since there is such good agreement, I will show you the GFS in this blog. They me start with the current temperatures 1 mile above the ground so you can link them up with the readings you are seeing in the current temperatures above.

 

GFS Temperatures 1 Mile Above The Ground Now

Notice the very cold blues are located over Montana right now where we are seeing current temperatures in the 40s.

 

 

 

GFS Temperatures 1 Mile Above The Ground Late Friday

By Friday, you can see the front is very well defined over southern Indiana. The darker blues are over Minnesota, so the cold surge has not fully started.

 

 

 

GFS Temperatures 1 Mile Above The Ground Late Saturday

By late Saturday, the cold front has blasted through our area and pressing its way through Tennessee. Notice the darker blues are now into southern Indiana.

 

 

 

GFS Temperatures 1 Mile Above The Ground Late Sunday

Notice on Sunday the darker blues have overtaken our entire area. This is the coldest air we have seen so far this fall.

 

 

 

My Thoughts On This Cold Surge

 

When looking at temperatures, we look at temperatures 1 mile above the ground to get an idea of how warm or cold it will be. This height in many senses "thermostats" the temperatures we see at the ground each day. The temperatures 1 mile above the ground late Saturday and Sunday are the coldest we have seen this season by about 7 degrees. This means if we can sustain ideal cooling conditions, then we could see a freeze by Monday morning. This is something we will need to watch because there is still conflicting data on Monday. I do feel a widespread frost will occur Monday morning, but a freeze is still not out of the question north of the river. As for highs, the data suggests we will not get out of the 50s all weekend long, so you will need a coat this weekend.

 

Looking at some specifics, let me show you the GFS and EURO temps for the important times this weekend. Remember the timestamp and model name is on the top right part of each image.

 

Late Saturday

 

 

 

Monday Morning 

 

 

 

The GFS is strongly suggesting frost is a guarantee and a hard freeze is possible north of the river. We need to watch this very closely!

 

One last note, no large severe weather threat looks likely right now. I will watch southern KY though as some data suggests an isolated strong storm is possible.

 

 

 

If you ever have any questions, please remember I can be reached on facebook easily! Just follow the link below to my facebook page and click "LIKE"!

 

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Marc-Weinberg/171330336238674#!/pages/Marc-Weinberg/171330336238674

Comments

[Ryan]

Thanks Marc, excellent blog post. My friend and I were debating an idiot coworker about this exact topic today! The guy was claiming we were idiots for calling this front strong when there is no severe threat. I will use your blog as proof tomorrow!

[Marc Weinberg]

Ryan, the a 25 degree drop in highs definitely falls into the strong cold front category. The severe threat is low on this system because the dewpoints are so low.