Our chill has arrived but is nothing as extreme as the first 2 weeks of this month. Lows early Wed. will be at or a little below freezing near & west of Highway 301 but only for a few hours at most. Lows early Thu. will be at or a little below freezing as close to the coast as I-95 but only for 2-5 hours. Neither of the mornings will come close to a hard freeze. Days will be beautiful with less wind than the last couple, lots of sun & afternoon temps. in the 60s.
But our overall weather pattern remains very active. The next storm arrives here Fri. night & Sat. & will produce widespread rain with another pretty good soaking for most of the area. While there might be a rumble of thunder, it appears the severe threat -- while not zero -- is far lower than the past 2 systems. It's not, however, looking like a nice first day of the weekend. This system will be a nasty winter storm from parts of Tx. & Ok. to the Carolina's & Mid Atlantic with a combination of ice, snow & wind. If you happen to have travel plans that would take you north on I-95 or north & west into parts of the Appalachians, Smoky Mountains & west from there through Tennessee, Northern Mississippi to Arkansas...it'll be a mess Thu. night through Fri. into Sat. The map below shows where advisories, watches & warnings are in effect. These will eventually be expanded all the way to the East Coast.
All indications continue to show that the stormy pattern will last well into Feb. as arctic air gets more & more involved. Locally, we'll have at least 2 more "opportunties" for rain next week & long range models -- while varying on the exact timing & track -- are honing in on a very strong storm for the end of next week somewhere between Feb. 4 & 8.
Our wetter winter is courtesy the well-predicted El Nino over the equatorial Pacific. This phenomenon should weaken over the next few months but not before we see our fair share of heavy rain & severe t'storms. I came across an interesting article from stormchase.com -- click here plus check out the graph of Fl. tornadoes per month. With or without an El Nino, winter & spring is the peak time for tornadoes up & down the Peninsula with a secondary peak in late summer/early fall due correlated with the peak of the hurricane season. Notice the high # of tornadoes in Feb. -- something to be aware of the next 4 weeks.
