Some very nice weather through the weekend with lots of sun & slowly warming temps. Highs in the upper 60s Fri. will warm to 70-75 Sat. & Sun. Temps. will be cooler at the beaches due to onshore east to northeast winds which will also elevate the rip current risk.
Tree pollen continues as oak trees shed their old leaves for new ones. High pollen levels can be expected the next several days.
As usual around the First Coast....lots of weekend activities:
** Cool temps. but lots of sun with little wind will make for great running/walking weather for the Gate River Run:
** Sat. is the Eucharistic Congress at the Prime Osborn Center for which I'll be the emcee -- click here for info. It's a great of prayer, reflection & speakers.
** Sun. is the Natural Life Music Festival at Metro Park benefiting the Children's Home Society. Formerly known as "Crafternoon" in Neptune Beach, the festival keeps getting bigger & bigger. I'll be the emcee as the music kicks off at 11am. The weather will be great -- click here for festival info.
WHAT: The 2013 Community First Natural Life Music Festival will be held, rain or shine, on Sunday, March 10, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., at Metropolitan Park in Downtown Jacksonville. The stellar lineup of indie folk artists includes Martin Sexton, Field Report, Swear and Shake, Sugar and the Hi-Lows, Lera Lynn and Henry Wagons. The free, family friendly event also features an artisan market, an arts and crafts area for kids and an array of healthy food vendors.
WHEN: Sunday, March 10 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. WHERE: Metropolitan Parkvirgin 1410 Gator Bowl Boulevard Jacksonville, FL 32202
COST: This event is free and open to the public with free parking available onsite.
WHY: The Community First Natural Life Music Festival is organized by Jacksonville-based not-for-profit, Natural Life for Children 501(c) 3. The event aims to raise funds for local charities benefiting children in need and will donate all of the proceeds this year to the Children’s Home Society Buckner Division. NOAA has issued its spring flood potential forecast. Click ** here ** for the report.
Check out this satellite animation -- click here -- of the lastest Nor'Easter March 5 - 7. From NASA:
Infrared data from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument aboard NASA's Aqua satellite was made into a false-colored image of the Nor'easter from March 6 at 1817 UTC (1:17 p.m. EST). Infrared imagery shows temperature data. The coldest cloud tops indicate the highest storm clouds, and the strongest convection. The coldest cloud top temperatures were near -45 Fahrenheit ( -43 Celsius), and were areas with the heaviest precipitation. At the time of the image, the coastal low pressure area's heaviest precipitation stretched over New Jersey, southeastern Pennsylvania, most of Maryland, Delaware, and eastern and northeast and central Virginia. Other areas of very cold cloud tops and heavy precipitation appeared over the Atlantic in the storm's arm, east and south of the center of circulation.
An animation of NOAA GOES-13 satellite imagery over the days of March 5, 6 and early on March 7 was created by the NASA GOES Project at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. The 24 second animation showed the progression of a cold front from the west associated with a low pressure system that brought snow from Chicago to the Appalachian Mountains. The low merged with a coastal low near the Mid-Atlantic on March 6 and brought up to 2 feet of snow in the Blue Ridge Mountains, while coastal areas and cities including Washington, D.C. and Baltimore received snow followed by heavy rain. The animation ends at 1331 UTC (8:31 a.m. EST) on March 7, when the nor'easter was affecting New England.
According to NOAA's National Operational Hydrologic Remote Sensing Center (NOHRSC) in Chanhassen, Minnesota, who compile and provide interactive snowfall information, the snowfall totals ranged from 18 inches in western northern Virginia to two-tenths of an inch at Reagan National Airport, Washington, D.C.
After the cold front and associated low that swept in from the Upper Mid-west merged with the coastal low pressure area, the coastal low pressure area became the driver. It brought in warmer temperatures from the Atlantic Ocean where sea surface temperatures were in the 40s (Fahrenheit). The warmer air helped keep the precipitation as rainfall in a line from Baltimore and Washington, D.C. eastward. It was the higher elevations in the Mid-Atlantic that saw the most snow.
According to NOHRSC, the Blue Ridge Mountains received the most snow, totaling up to 2 feet. Dulles Airport, Virginia received 3 inches; Blue Mountain, Virginia received 17 inches and Front Royal, Virginia received 12 inches. In Maryland, the city of Westminster which lies west of Baltimore received 4.5 inches, while Columbia, located south of Baltimore, received 2 inches of snow.
The strong winds that accompanied the nor'easter did cause wind warnings and advisories. According to the Baltimore Sun newspaper the winds toppled a tractor trailer truck on Maryland's Bay Bridge that connects to Annapolis. The bridge was closed for four hours. The winds caused tree damage and power outages in Maryland and Delaware. In western northern Virginia and western Maryland winds coupled with heavy, wet snow took down trees and left thousands without power.
February temperatures (preliminary)
As part of an ongoing joint project between UAHuntsville, NOAA and NASA, John Christy, a professor of atmospheric science and director of the Earth System Science Center (ESSC) at The University of Alabama in Huntsville, and Dr. Roy Spencer, an ESSC principal scientist, use data gathered by advanced microwave sounding units on NOAA and NASA satellites to get accurate temperature readings for almost all regions of the Earth. This includes remote desert, ocean and rain forest areas where reliable climate data are not otherwise available.
The satellite-based instruments measure the temperature of the atmosphere from the surface up to an altitude of about eight kilometers above sea level. Once the monthly temperature data is collected and processed, it is placed in a "public" computer file for immediate access by atmospheric scientists in the U.S. and abroad.
Global composite temp.: +0.18 C (about 0.32 degrees Fahrenheit) above 30-year average for February.
Northern Hemisphere: +0.37 C (about 0.67 degrees Fahrenheit) above 30-year average for February.
Southern Hemisphere: -0.02 C (about 0.04 degrees Fahrenheit) below 30-year average for February.
Tropics: +0.17 C (about 0.31 degrees Fahrenheit) above 30-year average for February.
January temperatures (revised):
Global Composite: +0.50 C above 30-year average
Northern Hemisphere: +0.56 C above 30-year average
Southern Hemisphere: +0.45 C above 30-year average
Tropics: +0.37 C above 30-year average
(All temperature anomalies are based on a 30-year average (1981-2010) for the month reported.)
Notes on data released March 5, 2013:
Global average temperature anomalies that jumped almost three tenths of a degree Celsius from December 2013 to January 2013, fell by more than three tenths through February, according to Dr. John Christy, a professor of atmospheric science and director of the Earth System Science Center at The University of Alabama in Huntsville. The cooling was especially pronounced in the Southern hemisphere, where temperatures dropped from 0.45 C (0.81 degrees F) warmer than seasonal norms in January to 0.02 C (about 0.036 F) cooler than seasonal norms in February.
“On monthly time scales, apparently what goes up can come down,” Christy said.
Compared to seasonal norms, over the past month the coldest area on the globe was along the eastern border of Mongolia, where the average temperature in February was as much as 4.55 C (about 8.2 degrees Fahrenheit) cooler than seasonal norms. Compared to seasonal norms, the “warmest” area on the globe in February was off the southeastern coast of Iceland. Temperatures there averaged 3.55 C (about 6.4 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than seasonal norms for February.
