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Weather Blog: The Next Storm System

Posted at 3:36 AM, Jan 05, 2021
and last updated 2021-01-05 04:50:34-05

Good Tuesday bloggers,

Before we discuss the next storm system, a question. Have you noticed it is not getting dark quite as early? If you said yes, you are correct.

The shortest day light of the year occurs on December 21st, the Winter Solstice. This is when the sun is shining directly overhead at the Tropic of Capricorn in the southern hemisphere, their first day of summer. It is the day when we have the most indirect rays from the sun and the least amount of daylight. After the Winter Solstice the daylight slowly increases each day as the sun begins its trek north. It will be shining directly over the Equator on the first day of Spring and directly over the Tropic of Cancer on our first day of summer (first day of winter in the southern hemisphere).

Since December 21st we have gained 7 minutes and 7 seconds of daylight. By the end of February will be close to seeing an additional 2 hours of daylight since December 21st.

The sun sets at 4:59 PM on December 21st, 5:10 PM today and 6:10 PM on February 28th. The earliest sunset time is 4:55 PM during the period from December 2nd to 10th. These are not the shortest daylight days as the sunrise time is earlier.

This year we "Spring Forward" with the clocks on March 14th. The sun will set at 7:24 PM on that day.

Now, to the next storm system.

We are tracking one storm system this week. It is looking more and more likely that we will see some precipitation from this storm Wednesday and Thursday. Rain and snow would be the precipitation types. It is yet another odd storm. On January 1st we saw a storm system track north from Mexico into Missouri before weakening and heading east. This week the storm system is tracking east into the Dakotas and Nebraska. It will stop and turn south into Kansas and Oklahoma before heading east into the southeast USA. It will be getting its act together as it tracks south.

This means precipitation will be moving in odd directions as the increasing rain and snow begin to rotate around the storm as it is dropping south. It looks like we are in a zone where .10" to .50" rain/melted snow is possible. Right now it appears to be a few degrees too warm to have accumulating snow. We will watch this closely as a few degrees colder on the storm and/or a bit stronger on the storm, we could end up with a few inches of snow Wednesday night and Thursday. We still need moisture and if an odd storm can produce here, great.

The 35 second Powercast video below shows the evolution of the storm, no audio.

Have a great rest of your week and stay healthy.