Tuesday featured partly cloudy skies (mostly fair weather cumulus developing in the “heat” of the day), and windy. We did manage to get into the low 40s for highs and an early AM just below freezing. Temperatures have held below freezing overnight into Wednesday, with winds lessening overnight as differential heating dropping under clear skies. The Tuesday maximum temperature from the VP2 (42.8°) was recorded at 1509 while the minimum temperature (30.4°) was recorded at 0737. Dew point temperatures were a bit lower than yesterday, ranging from a high of 30° at 0000 down to a low of 16° at 1742. Relative humidity values were high once again in the early hours of the day, but dropped off in the afternoon with the drying winds blowing around (88% – 36%). Barometric values lowered some today, ranging from an early low of 29.81″ at 0328 up to a high of 29.90″ later at 2144.

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. I contribute daily to cocorahs as Rockville 2.8 WNW, Station ID MD-MG-115. Please remember that Weather Underground does not report snow data, and reflects what is recorded automatically through the tipping bucket VP2 gauge.

I got up in the mid-afternoon to try and help Ray with his weather station delivery which the Amazon delivery driver messed up. We got that delivery cancelled and credited, then I wound up re-ordering it for him, with delivery now due on Thursday. We order a lot of weather equipment and other items through Amazon, and normally it goes very well and without a hitch. Unfortunately not this time.  I am still trying to work on entering my February data into the master 2018 spreadsheet, which I use as a base for the report I generate for weathertogether online and the monthly WEATHERSHELTER publication. I still expect to finish it sometime this week. I had to deal with problems in sending out email through gmail and verizon through Thunderbird, as the outgoing SMTP mail server kept timing out. I fool around with settings a bit but rebooting seems to be the only real working solution.  I did a bit of science fair email correspondence, but due to the aforementioned problem I was held back on making much progress on that activity. 

It was mostly clear and cold in the early AM on Monday with low temps around the 30° mark, then rose slowly into the mid-afternoon into the low 40s, with lots of “instability” cumulus clouds created by differential heating and the windy conditions on the backside of the big Nor’easter snowstorm now well to our north and east. Today’s featured image is looking N out of my balcony, a cloud pic for GLOBE with an estimated base elevation of about 6000-7000 feet according to METAR data for nearby Gaithersburg Airpark station KGAI. Overnight Tuesday into Wednesday has been clear and cold, with winds dropping off quite a bit and temps in the upper 20s. For the rest of Wednesday we should be partly to mostly cloudy with winds picking up again and remaining chilly, once again in the low 40s. Normal max temps for mid-March are in the mid 50s so we are running well below normal on the daily max temps and the peak of the cherry blossoms downtown has now been delayed till the end of the month. Low temps on Wednesday night should be in the mid-upper 20s. Thursday looks to start warming up under mostly cloudy skies, with highs in the upper 40s and lows in the upper 20s and the wind slowly decreasing. Friday looks to be mostly sunny and colder once again, with highs in the upper 30s and lows in the mid 20s. St Patrick’s Day Saturday looks to be bouncing back again to the warmer side under mostly sunny skies, with high temps in the upper 40s and lows in the mid-upper 20s. Sunday should warm up a bit more, with highs in the low-mid 50s and lows in the upper 20s under sunny skies.

On the Channel 4 weather website at 0825 radar is showing the latest Nor’easter still dumping snow in upstate NY and northern parts of New England where feet of snow has fallen in many spots. Also an upper level LOW is moving through the Great Lakes and causing light snow amounts in parts of several states out in that region, including SW VA, NC, TN, KY, OH, WV, PA and western NY at this time.

As of 0825, 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 WXBug station are as follows:

Clear, cold and dry.

Station Relative Location Temp RH DP    BP     Wind High/Low temp Tuesday
VP2           Ground          29.7  65  19 29.86S    NA     42.8/30.4

The total precipitation in the cocorahs gauge was 0.00″ through midnight Tuesday. The VP2 tipping bucket rain gauge under my balcony had 0.00″ through midnight Tuesday.

Tuesday’s precipitation was 0.00″
March precipitation is 0.44″.
Tuesday’s snowfall 0.0″
March snowfall 0.3″
Snow on ground 0 (reported to the nearest half-inch)
The seasonal snowfall total is 7.8″.
Year-to-date precipitation total is 7.07″

WX Bug Lakewood 4500 ft, 28 63 16 29.83″S W 1 G WSW 11
                            140° from station                 42/29

The Lakewood rain gauge recorded 0.00″ of precipitation on Tuesday. It is now reporting a total of 0.98″ of precipitation so far in March and a 2018 year-to-date (YTD) amount of 8.48″.

At 2400 obs Sunday night the temperature from the VP2 was 32.6 RH 70% BP 29.90″S DP 23.9 .

Clear, cold, dry, no snow on the ground

Good morning from the clear and cold home of the Walrus early on this Wednesday.