Is it going to rain for the New Year's Festivities?

Rain could move into the area by New Year's Eve and stay in the area overnight into the first day of the new year however I believe the precipitation will be isolated. It is unlikely that we will see a steady rain. At most, we should see decent weather for Thursday, with sporadic rain showers moving into the area by 9PM and that chance of on-and-off rain will continue through the night. The precipitation chances should shrink to close to zero by 12PM on Friday as colder, much colder air in fact, moves into the area. The New Year's weekend looks to become one of the coldest thus far.

New Year's Forecasts

BOTTOM LINE - Temperatures will be cool but not cold on New Year's Eve and Day; precipitation chances will be greatest Thursday (12/31) night and early Friday (1/1/10) morning. However any rain that develops will likely be light dropping little accumulating rain. Probability of Precipitation - 50% inland; 35% along coast.

First few days of the New Year - Very cold and temperatures in Savannah could drop to sub-freezing temperatures for several hours in the mornings (mainly 1/2 - 1/5); along the coast, temperatures could very well drop below 32°F which is highly unusual.

Thurs., December 31, 2009 - High around 54°F and Low approaching 45°F (thought that may occur just after midnight and rise steadily as the morning progresses). Precipitation develops after 6AM ET and chances continue to increase as day progresses. Can't rule out showers moving inland from ocean, as moisture is pulled into frontal zone. Any precipitation will bring little accumulation.

Fri., January 1, 2010 - High reaching around 53°F (but again, this will probably be reached in the early morning) and lows around 42°F (likely reached during last evening hours). Rain chances will diminish drastically by 9AM.

The Quantitative Precipitation Forecast shows little precipitation accumulation for Wednesday and Thursday (from 12/30 7PM ET to 12/31 7PM ET, respectively) and keeps that same pattern of relatively small amounts of precipitation for the area, including Skidaway Island. The first image below is the forecast and note how the high amounts of precipitation have not fallen over the Savannah area, they remain to the west. The same holds true for the second images, which shows precipitation accumulation from 12Z 12/31/09 until 12Z 1/2/10 of around a tenth of an inch.

Two major models, the GFS (18Z) and the NAM (0Z 12/29), both paint different pictures for this upcoming week. The GFS continues to keep moisture in the area much more so by Thursday night, while temperatures throughout the first part of the week remain cool and warm gradually as rain chances increase. The NAM keeps the area drier and cooler, giving the Savannah area a relatively calm weather day on Thursday night and Friday morning.

As for the blizzard that could impact parts of the Northeast around the first of January, the models are essentially guessing haphazardly how strong the storm will be in terms of pressure, whether the storm will have a more easterly or westerly component, and if the precipitation line will be far enough south to impact the ball drop in Times Square. I believe the chances are slim for snow or frozen precipitation on New Year's Eve and the early morning hours of New Year's Day. Most all the models remain in agreement that some type of low pressure system will impact the East Coast and the rain/snow line continues to be located incredibly near the New York City metro area. So this certainly points to the fact that could potential be some mixed precipitation in the general area--but I would not put much faith in that possibility.

On another note, a Freeze Warning is in effect from this evening until 9AM ET tomorrow morning (12/29/09). This event will bring the coldest temperatures of the season to coastal locations, including Halfmoon Landing, Fort McAllister, and Darien.

Stay Warm!

"Mr. Tornado" -- Theodore Fujita

Since it has been just over ten years since Dr. Fujita's death, I wrote a quick summary of his life and just a few of his accomplishments. Even though, truth be told, I have not done him justice.

Although he died in 1998, Dr. Tetsuya Theodore Fujita continues to be one of the most instrumental meteorology figures. He advanced the science of atmospheric science and severe thunderstorms like no other during his time. His legacy still continues today because of his endless devotion to studying and explaning severe weather phenomena. You may recognize the name Fujita; it is the common name for the tornado intensity scale--the Fujita Scale. Recently retired and replaced with the Enhanced Fujita Scale, the Fujita Scale was the first tornado rating scale based on damage severity alone. Mr. Tornado, as he was called, realized that there was a distinct corrolation between damage and tornadic wind speed.

Dr. Theodore Fujita was born in Japan on October 23, 1920 in the small rural town of Kitakyusu. After earning several degrees, including a Doctoral of Science from Tokyo University, Horace Byers encouraged him to come to the University of Chicago to futher his studies and teach meteorology.

Until the late 1970s when Dr. Fujita made extraordinary discoveries in the field of meteorology, tornadic thunderstorms were thought to have one main tornado that caused all of the damage associated with its path. The different wind damage patterns puzzled meteorologists and the general public. After observing and studying thousands of data and images, Dr. Fujita theorized that there were other "mini" tornadoes or vortices--more specifically called multiple vortex tornadoes-- that coexisted in particularly severe thunderstorms. In addition, he believed that thunderstorms had different types of wind shear within them--some surface based phenomenon included downbursts and tornadoes. He opined in several scientific journals that downbursts could be grouped into two distinct categories: either macrobursts or microbursts. The two prefixes simply indicate the magnitude of the damage from the air that falls. If the damage swath is less than 2.5 miles in diameter it is a microburst, if more it is a macroburst. All downbursts are caused by rapidly descending columns of air because of dry layers within a thunderstorm. These columns hit the surface of the Earth and spread rapidly outward. The damage caused by these collapses within cumulonimbus clouds had a distinct and obvious difference with the damage caused by tornadoes. These theories by Dr. Fujita were later proven by other scientists.

Dr. Fujita truly was an old-school scientist. Born in 1920, he was not educated in an age with supercomputers and computer modeling techniques. When the advent of computers did materialize, he believed that the computers simply "didn't understand these [meteorology] things" ("Tornado researcher Ted Fujita died in 1998," 2005).

During his childhood, he was in Japan amidst the growing tensions between the United States and Japan resulting in World War Two. Ironically, Fujita was saved by Mother Nature herself when the weather was overcast, which proved unfavorable for an atomic bomb drop at the Kokura Terminal which was about three miles from where Fujita worked. After the atomic bomb drops on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, the Japanese government sent Fujita to study the damage that was inflicted on those areas (Marshall, 1998). It is amazing that the weather saved Dr. Theodore Fujita's life, the very living person that would make unprecedented meteorological discoveries.

I thank him for his work in the atmospheric and meteorological fields. I wish that I would have had the opportunity to meet such an intelligent man and discuss his theories. It has been ten years since his death yet his discoveries are still the foundation of what we know today about mesoscale meteorology. We dedicate this entry to him and his hard work.

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