Monday, February 06, 2012

Tropical devlopment?

There is not a lot going on in the weather department this morning. We are coming off a rather regular February weekend with chilly mornings and sunny, pleasant afternoons. Temperatures were as cold as -17C Sunday morning, but as warm as 0C by late in the day. We sit at 1C this morning along with a gusty southwest wind that has reached nearly 50km/h at times. The wind will continue for most of the day and tonight with a mild high of 3C expected in the St. Lawrence, Ottawa and Champlain Valley's. A cold front will approach from Ontario late this evening and overnight accompanied by some decent snow showers, much the same as Friday night when a quick 1-3cm fell across the city. Winds will be gusty and temperatures will cool behind the front to about -5C Tuesday and down to -17C by Wednesday morning. The rest of the week looks fair with perhaps another cold front by Friday. There are no major storms in sight at this time.

Meanwhile it remains mild everywhere for February with several record highs in Manitoba yesterday. Included were normally frigid Churchill Falls at -1.8C (-5.6, 1961), and Pilot Mound in the south at 8.8C (8.3C, 1963).

NOAA Image of the Gulf of Mexico and Florida with what appears to be a tropical system in the southeast corner of the image.

Another item that had the weather geeks buzzing yesterday was the formation of what appeared to be a tropical type system (depression/storm) in the Florida Straits. A rare February special statement was issued by the National Hurricane Center saying the likelihood of development was virtually zero percent with no circulation present. Nevertheless the system will move to the northeast bringing south Florida and the Keys a drenching rain and some gusty winds.

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