Kevin Selle
Wichita Falls, TX
Male, 55
I've been a broadcast meteorologist on television since the early 1990's. Happy to answer any questions about the weather or local TV news. Yes, I often wear sneakers on set just out of view of the camera.
Great question. A cold air event, like the current one, is a good bit less complicated than rain or snow. With a precipitation forecast there are more factors at play. In general a forecast gets fuzzier the further out it time you go. Broadly speaking the forecast starts with data gathered from weather balloons launched twice a day from about 900 sites around the world. That sounds like a big number but when you consider the size of the earth, and how much of it is covered by water, which is hard to launch a balloon from, that data is pretty sparse. The goal of the balloons is to take a snapshot of the atmosphere at a given moment. It is a fuzzy picture. Think of putting that fuzzy picture on a copy machine. The copy is fuzzier, then make a copy of a copy and so on. So the further out in time the more errors or changes that enter the forecast. Stay warm!
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Great question, Richard! Each storm and location is a little different. Much of the precipitation type is determined above the surface of the earth. The snowflakes form thousands of feet above the ground and stay frozen as they fall. A very shallow layer of air at the surface could be above freezing but not deep enough to melt the snow.
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Hello, Mrs. Mills. Broadly speaking the leeward side of the Allegheny Mountains would be the eastern side, closer to the coast. At any given moment the windward side of anything is that facing the wind. In general terms the broad atmospheric flow is west to east across the United States. Here is a good definition on Wikipedia. Thanks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windward_and_leeward
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Yes. But some would disagree.
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Yup! Any body of water. Glad you got to see one! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterspout
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Interesting, and pretty broad question. Probably little out of my area. Maybe look to some US government resources like FEMA? Thanks.
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Yup. Sure can. Cold air moving into an area, cold air advection, can drop the temperature. And something called evaporative cooling can happen when it is raining. The friction with the air caused by falling raindrops can transfer heat to the water vapor and cool the air as well. Great question!
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