The Challenges of Forecasting Fall Weather
By Scott Cimini on September 13, 2012, 4:35pm
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You might think that forecasting fall weather is easy to do. While this may be true in some parts of the country like Hawaii or Southern California, Connecticut is a different story. Let me explain why autumn isn’t as easy to forecast as you might think.
Rainfall systems
In the summer, most of the rain is in the form of thunderstorms which provide quick bursts of rain. Often the amount of washouts are few and far between. However, in the fall the systems become larger and when it rains, it often rains for longer durations. Because of this, predicting the timing and impact of the weather becomes more complex.
The First Frost
Farmers keep a close eye on the weather in fall because they need to know when that first frost is expected. This puts some added pressure on the local meteorologists to make sure they get the forecast correctly.
Forecasting High Temperatures
In the summer the days are longer and the sunshine is much stronger. It’s also pretty rare to stay cloudy all day so the chance of the sun popping out and raising the temperature up to the forecasted high is more likely. In Autumn, the days are shorter and you just have less time to hit that forecasted high temperature.
Fog
In the summer, lakes and rivers warm up quite nicely. The combination of warm lakes and rivers and cooler, longer nights make conditions favorable for fog. Fog is very dangerous and causes many accidents every year in Connecticut. The weaker sun in the fall also allows the fog to stick around longer.
Tropical Weather
Even though Connecticut doesn’t get hit with too many hurricanes, Meteorologists still need to keep a close eye on the tropics. September is peak hurricane season and you never know is a land falling hurricane to our south will impact our weather greatly a few days later!
Snow
Meteorologists who forecast areas involving higher elevations such as Denver, CO often have to watch out for autumn snowstorms. The Great Lakes region also has been known to get snowstorms just days after very mild weather. And of course there’s last year’s October snowstorm in Connecticut that brought down trees and power lines across the area.
Fall is the transition from summer to winter and it’s a period of changing weather. Some days will be warm and sunny (like today) and in a week you could have high’s in the 50s. Kids are now in school so parents keep a close eye on the weather to see how they should dress their child for school. I like to keep a sweatshirt or light jacket in my car during the fall just in case the temperature drops quickly.
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