Weather

Your Thursday is turning out to be a beautiful day as the sun fights with a few cirrus and cirrostratus clouds i.e. “high clouds”. These clouds are in response to warmer air moving into the TN Valley and the leading edge our next rainmaker.  For the rest of today, look for a partly t cloudy sky with highs in the low to mid 70s. Winds will come from the South at 5-15mph.  Tonight, the clouds thicken locking in some of the heat. With the clouds and a wind from the south, look for lows in the low to mid 50s.  

By the time many of us head to work on Friday, showers and storms will be ongoing. Due to such cold air aloft, some of the storms tomorrow morning could contain small hail, although severe weather in not likely. Expect these showers to move through from around 5am-11am. By Friday afternoon, severe weather is becoming increasingly likely. The Storm Prediction Center has painted a slight risk over the entire viewing area, with an enhanced “bulls-eye” over us, noted below.

 Spring is here! More on spring and what's behind the "balance an egg on the first day of spring"trick?  

Well yet again, most of the area escaped the snow as it stayed to the north and west. I do feel for those dealing with all the ice from the Ohio Valley to the Great Plains. Nothing is worse during winter than an Ice Storm. As cold air filters in, think of the thousands who don’t have power. 

So just how cold did it get? Here are a few numbers from emails, calls, NWS and commercial/personal weather stations. Thanks for all the help this morning!  No records though. The record low in Chattanooga is 2 set in 1972.

Got a message over the phone from yesterday asking, were we having sleet or snow, as it looked like a combination of both on Signal Mountain? 

I immediately thought of snow pellets. Better known as GRAUPEL. Many saw the burst of snow, sleet and graupel even when the temperatures were in the mid 40s! A quick explanation as to why is that temps around 5000’ were below freezing not giving the snow ample amount of time to melt before it reached the ground. Also dry air was in place leading to evaporational cooling to take place.

The latest on our next winter weather event inside.

Today, I had the pleasure of visiting Ms. Dean's 3rd Grade class at Wallace A. Smith in Ooltewah.  They asked some great questions about tornados.  Take a look at these youngsters: