Odds & Ends: Recent Storms, Gulf Oil Spill, Cooler Weather

It's been a while since our last blog post, and a lot of meaningful weather has occurred.  The first real taste of Summer heat and humidity roasted the region this past weekend.  While it wasn't the first time many of us saw temperatures eclipsing the 90-degree mark (see early April), humidity reared it's ugly head over the weekend, creating that classic, sweaty combo and drawing to mind that classic comment: "It's not the heat, it's the HUMIDITY!"

March of the Storms:
Luckily for those of us longing for drier, cooler air -- or those who wish not to hear that cliche repeated every few minutes -- relief came Sunday night in the form of showers and strong thunderstorms.  Those showers and thunderstorms brought locally heavy rainfall, gusty winds and some localized storm damage, which could've been worse had the storms not weakened as they moved into our area.

The storms on Sunday night were associated with the first of several frontal boundaries that have been marching through the region over the past 48 hours.  The cold front that finally brought relief in the humidity department arrived on Monday afternoon with gusty showers.  Yet another surface trough feature pushed through today, again associated with a thunderstorm, which many felt the effects of even without receiving a single drop of rain.  An outflow boundary, or strong gust front that is generated by a thunderstorm and then pushes out well ahead of it (see the Wikipedia article), swept through most of Bucks and Montgomery counties between 4 and 5pm today.  It was even detected on the reflectivity mode of radar (see image to the right), which normally only detects precipitation.  Check out that thin, blue line as it pushes out well ahead of the parent thundershower.  As it moved through, we saw calm, warm conditions turn suddenly into cooler, gustier conditions.  For example, at Doylestown, just outside of our coverage area, temperatures fell from 75 to 63 in an hour (presumably a matter of minutes between observations) on a wind shift from west to northwest with only 0.01" of rain.

If you're yearning for an afternoon of weather that won't be interrupted by sudden showers and wind shifts and outflow boundaries, you'll be in luck... but just for a day.  Wednesday will feature bright, sunny skies and temperatures into the lower 80s.  Additional frontal boundaries, similar to those we've been experiencing the past few days from what are called "shortwaves," will continue to affect us toward the end of the week.  A stronger cold front will usher in unseasonably cool weather by next weekend, but more about that later.

Gulf Oil Spill:
I'm sure by now you've heard about the tremendous disaster occurring in the Gulf of Mexico with the explosion of a BP oil rig and subsequent, significant discharge of oil that is still ongoing.  What you may not know is that NOAA, the parent government agency behind the National Weather Service, is largely responsible for tracking and forecasting the trajectory of the 150-mile wide swath of oil.  Dubbed "Deepwater Horizon Incident," NOAA's website portal for the disaster is constantly being updated with new information about the disaster as 210,000 gallons of oil continues to be released into the Gulf every day.

While Louisiana and Florida are most imminently under the threat of environmental impacts from the growing oil spill, there are growing concerns that even those with interests along and off the Atlantic East coast could soon have to deal with oil contamination.  Strong northwesterly winds, which are expected later this week, could force some of the oil further to the southwest of its release point and into the Loop Current, a swift underwater current that would drive the oil southeast toward the Florida Keys.  At this point, it would come in contact with the Gulf Stream and potentially traverse up offshore of the East Coast.  Of course this is all theoretical, and dependent on many factors including steering winds, precipitation, and whether or not BP is finally able to shut off that insufferable valve.

Cooler Weather this Weekend:

As the Montreal Canadiens head into town to face the Flyers this week, another un-welcomed Canadian guest may not be far behind.  Behind a strong cold front which is expected to move through early Saturday, cooler-than-normal Canadian air will usher into the area for the beginning of next week.  After our low temperatures a few days ago barely edged below 80 degrees, some of us may struggle to reach 60 for a high on Sunday.  The image to the right shows the Climate Prediction Center's temperature outlook for early next week, and there's plenty of blue/below normal across the Northeast.

As always, continue to follow our Twitter account, @TheWeatherWord, for more frequent updates you won't always see here on the blog.
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