Frosty Morning

 (updated from the post published Wednesday morning)

 

High pressure has moved overhead, allowing mainly clear skies and light winds.

Locations away from the lake will drop down into the low and mid 30s through 8 am.  A few spots to the west and northwest may actually drop to 30-32° for an hour or two.  The frost threat should end after about 9 am.

Temperatures near the lake will be in the lower 40s.  The lake water is currently 62°, and that will keep those areas from dropping into the 30s.

Make sure to bring in any moveable plants & flowers you have, and cover ones that will remain outside.

Very Autumnal

A strong cold front passed through the area around 4-5 am today with gusty thunderstorms.  A few isolated severe t-storm warnings were issued.  Minor issues were reported due to the gusty winds.

A powerful storm will continue to reside over the northern Great Lakes through Tuesday.  This will keep gusty winds in the area today into tonight.

Winds will be sustained at 20 to 30 mph, but occasional gusts will be close to 45 mph.  A wind advisory is in effect for the entire viewing area.

Much cooler air will continue to settle into our area the next few days.  High temperatures will be hard-pressed to break out of the lower 60s.  Lows Tuesday night/Wednesday morning will drop to near 40°, and into the upper 30s Wednesday night/Thursday morning .  Areas well northwest of  Toledo could see the first frost of the season.

Temps will moderate a bit by the end of the week.

Race For The Cure

Thank you to all who participated and/or donated to this year's Race For The Cure.  This is an event that continues to grow each year, and one that WTOL is very proud to be associated with.

Check out our race page HERE for pictures and clips.  We also have video of the 2 hour live coverage on that page as well.

Even though the race is over this year, you can still donate to the NW Ohio Komen charity HERE.

Summing Up Summer

 

We have now closed the books on a somewhat cool summer.  After crunching all of the numbers, we ended up having about 51% of the days with above normal highs (46% were below normal, and 3% were exactly normal).

Some of these numbers are a little misleading -- a lot of the days with "above" normal highs were just a few degrees above normal.  Some of the below normal days were well below normal.

Also -- July is statistically the hottest part of the summer.  We actually had the 23 days in July with below normal highs, and never hit 90° during the month.

For the summer season, we used about 83% of our normal air conditioning.

Change of Season

Fall begins at 5:18 pm EDT tomorrow evening.  The autumnal equinox marks the time that the direct rays of the sun are directly over the equator.  Those direct rays will continue moving into the southern hemisphere as we get closer to winter.

The term equinox suggests equal daylight and darkness.  That is true closer to the equator.  Our sunrise Tuesday will be at 7:23 am, and the sunset will be at 7:32 pm.  We continue to lose about 2-3 minutes of daylight each day.  By Saturday, our amount of daylight will slip to just below 12 hours.

Normal high this week ranges 70°-72°, and the lows range 49°-51°.  Temps look like they will remain above normal until late in the weekend.

New NOAA Supercomputers

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has just completed the implementation of a new generation of supercomputers to aid in weather and climate prediction.  The complete technology overhaul had a price tag of $180 million dollars.   The new computing power will allow NOAA to run more complex models in an effort to improve forecast accuracy and extend watch and warning lead times for severe weather, including hurricanes, tornadoes, air quality, wildfires, floods, tsunamis and winter storms.

The supercomputers have been named "Stratus" and are 4 times faster than the prior system.  Stratus has the ability to make 69.7 Trillion calculations per second!!!

Interesting facts about Stratus:

• The microprocessors inside Stratus contain 2,000 miles of copper wiring, enough to stretch from Washington, D.C. to the Grand Canyon.


• It would take one person with a calculator 3 million years to tabulate the number of calculations that Stratus can perform in a single second.


• Stratus would fit in half the size of a tennis court.


• Stratus is 34 times more powerful than the most powerful supercomputer in existence a decade ago.

The new computing power will give meteorologists better accuracy and precision in both short-term and long-term forecasting.

Weekend Outlook

Other than some morning fog, the weather through the weekend will be quite tranquil.  Highs will be near or slightly above normal across the area.  Normal high is 76°.

There will be a few light scattered showers across northeast Ohio today and Saturday, but the rest of the region will stay dry.

This is a map showing rainfall from Friday through daybreak Monday.  As you can see, the active weather will be in the Plains, across the Gulf coast, and the northeast.