Monday started what potentially may be quite a wet week, depending on what kind of visit we get at the end of the week from Hurricane Florence. A cloudy day, with occasional drizzle/light rain (.09″ daily total) and early AM fog, temperatures slowly crept through the 60s into the low 70s, as did the dew point. At what temperature does your condition description move from damp, to muggy, and then to humid? The Monday maximum temperature climbed to 71.4° @ 2054, while the Monday minimum temperature was 60.4° recorded @ 0620. The dew point temperatures rose quite a bit to keep up with the slowly rising temps all day, ranging from a low of 59° @ 0000 up to a high of 71° @ 2057. The barometric pressure was about the same as yesterday – the highest value being 30.13″ @ 0000 down to a low of 30.00″ @ 1751. The relative humidity rose a tad from yesterday’s high values, ranging from a low of 92% @ 0000 up to a high of 97% at 1039.

Remember now you can get the VP2 data on Weatherlink. You can access the data through http://www.weatherlink.com/user/walrusman444 I am posting daily to weather underground. My ID is KMDROCKV200 and my station is called “Gardens of Traville.” Data is online, normally just about in real-time. The web address for my data on weather underground is: https://www.wunderground.com/personal-weather-station/dashboard?ID=KMDrockv200#history/ I contribute daily to cocorahs as Rockville 2.8 WNW, Station ID MD-MG-115 on https://www.cocorahs.org/ Please remember that Weather Underground precipitation data reflects what is recorded automatically through the tipping bucket VP2 gauge. I actually use the data I post to cocorahs from my 4″ cocorahs gauge I read manually as my “official” precipitation total each day.

I have been following the Hurricane Florence coverage on the Weather Channel, which covered it live all night, and also local TV outlets. Of course I pull up updates off of a few sites on the internet, and monitor local NOAA Weather Radio.  

Monday was cloudy, damp with temps slowly increasing all afternoon and evening. Light drizzle/light showers (nothing convective) fell off and on all day. All week looks to be partly to mostly cloudy, humid, with scattered showers and storms each day of the week (30 POP today, 40-60 POP Tuesday through Saturday with the greater chances towards the end of the week as Florence prepares to come ashore on the North Carolina or South Carolina beaches late Thursday or Friday morning. Florence is a strong CAT 4 now with winds 130-140 MPH, tracking WNW many hundreds of miles offshore, but its movement is steady and relentless. High temps should be in the low 80s on Wednesday and Thursday, and 70s on all other days through Saturday. Low temps should be around 70° Tuesday through Thursday, then mid-upper 60s Friday and Saturday. Temperatures won’t be much of an issue this week, the rain will take center stage. It is still tough to say how much we will be affected by Florence at this time, but keeping close tabs on its forecasted track is quite prudent.

At 1021, Channel 4 radar is showing very isolated and scattered showers over a wide area of Pennsylvania, and small batches of showers over parts of the Shenandoah Valley and Mtns in west-central Virginia. All action from Florence is still well out to sea off the Carolina coast.

At 1021, the data from the VP2 (coming from the ground radiation shield about 4 feet off the ground just under and out from the balcony) and the Lakewood WX Bug station are as follows:

Cloudy skies, still foggy, very damp, relatively cool.

Station Relative Location Temp  RH   DP     BP    Wind High/Low on Monday
VP2           Ground          68.8° 98% 68° 30.13″R NA     71.4°/60.4°

The total precipitation in the cocorahs gauge was 0.09″ though midnight Monday.
The VP2 tipping bucket recorded much less, unlike over the weekend, with 0.03″.
Monday’s precipitation was 0.09″.
September precipitation total is now 4.50″.
Year-to-date precipitation total 42.58″

WX Bug Lakewood 4500 ft, 69° 100% 69° 30.13″R Calm G NNW 6
                            140° from station                   Mon. Hi/Lo 71°/59°
The Lakewood rain gauge recorded 0.07″ of rain from midnight Sunday through midnight Monday. The September total precipitation total has been significantly adjusted once again showing 4.70″ with the 2018 year-to-date (YTD) amount now at 54.83″. I definitely continue to believe that at times the disparities between the Lakewood WX Bug station precipitation amount total for the month and year and my cocorahs gauge based data is that the Lakewood precip values are estimated/adjusted from radar.

At 2400 obs Monday night the temperature from the VP2 was 70.3° RH 97% BP 30.06″S DP 69.4°
Cloudy, occas drizzle, fog, still muggy.

Good morning from the cloudy/foggy and muggy home of the Walrus on this 9/11 Tuesday (featured image flying on my post in honor of those who passed on 17 years ago today).