5 December 2007
The surface temperature field campaign continues to go well. Yesterday, 38 observations were posted by students. I believe this number will increase as students and teachers get their observations into the GLOBE Web site.
Almost all of the observations are below the freezing mark today. The coldest surface temperature observations came from the Moosewood Farm Home School (teacher Deb Bennett) in Fairbanks, Alaska. The lowest value of surface temperature they measured so far was –25.9° C (-14.9° F).
The weather in the United States has remained wintry and significant snowfall has occurred in the Great Lakes region to the east coast. I measured around 5 cm of snow when it stopped snowing here in Toledo, Ohio today. I know that other places measured a lot more snow. Greg Lopatka from The Morton Arboretum Youth Education Department in Lisle, Illinois measured 15 cm (6 inches) of snow. The snow was caused by an Alberta Clipper. An Alberta Clipper is a type of low pressure system (storm) that moves from Alberta, Canada down across the Great Lakes. Storms in North America typically form to the east of the Rocky Mountains in either Colorado or Alberta, along the Gulf of Mexico or along the east coast of the United States. I am not familiar will storm tracks in Europe and Asia so I will check it out.
You can see in the map below that parts of the upper Great Lakes have over 50 cm of snow on the ground. The snow depth in the Great Lakes and northeast US is high for this time of year. Are we going to have a cold winter in this part of the world? We shall see.
Figure 1. Snow depth in the United States December 5, 2007. Source: National Operational Hydrologic Remote Sensing Center.
With all of the snow on the ground, the clear skies and calm winds due to high pressure, air temperatures in the Great Lakes area will get very cold tonight. We should see record low temperatures. The temperature is already –13° C (9° F) at my house this evening and the dew point is around –17° C (0° F). The dew point is the temperature at which condensation occurs. If the temperature reaches the dew point and condensation occurs, fog will form and latent energy will be released. This will keep the temperature from going down any further. So, we can expect that the low air temperature tonight at my house in Temperance, Michigan will be around –17° C (0° F). The record low for this area is –18° C (-2° F) from 1976 which was a very cold winter. The low temperatures in Minnesota tonight are going to be extremely cold. At the time I am writing this, it is –28° C (-20° F) in central Minnesota. Temperatures may get down to –34° C (30° F). The surface of the snow will be even colder. Why does the new snow cause the air temperature to get so cold? How will the surface temperature compare to the air temperature?
Students from more schools have entered data onto the GLOBE website for the surface temperature field campaign:
| Roswell Kent Middle School, Akron, Ohio, USA Rockhill Elementary School, Alliance, Ohio, USA Dalton High School, Dalton, Ohio, USA Chartiers-Houston Jr./Sr. High School, Houston, Pennsylvania, USA The Morton Arboretum Youth Education Dept., Lisle, Illinois, USA Mill Creek Middle School, Comstock Park, Michigan, USA Kilingi-Nomme Gymnasium, Parnumaa, Estonia National Presbyterian School, Washington, DC, USA Polaris Career Center, Middleburg Heights, Ohio, USA White Cloud Public, White Cloud, Michigan, USA Blue Valley High School, Stilwell, Kansas, USA Kittrell Elementary School, Waterloo, Iowa, USA Ingomar Middle School, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA Lorain Community College Early College High School, Elyria, Ohio, USA Roxboro Middle School, Cleveland Heights, Ohio, USA Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio, USA Ida Elementary School, Ida, Michigan, USA Whitehall High School, Whitehall, Michigan, USA Birchwood School, Cleveland, Ohio, USA Moosewood Farm Home School, Fairbanks, Alaska, USA Gimnazium in Toszek, Toszek, Poland Waynesboro Senior High School, Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, USA Estes Park High School, Estes Park, Colorado, USA Eastwood Middle School, Pemberville, Ohio, USA Orange Elementary School, Waterloo, Iowa, USA Main Street School, Norwalk, Ohio, USA |
Bundle up.
Dr. C
