Roller-coaster weather
Finally some snow in our region as several quick moving storms have visited the Middle Atlantic and Southern States.
Temperatures last Sunday were in the 60s and 70s across much of the Middle Atlantic and Southern states when a fast-moving storm brought enough cold air to drop those temperature 30 to 40 degrees in just 12 hours and change the precipitation from rain to snow.
In spite of the fact that the snow was predicted the quickly dropping temperature and heavy wet snow set the stage for a real winter disaster as many were caught off guard and became ensnarled in one of the worst traffic nightmares in decades on interstate 95 through Virginia, Maryland and into eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
Interstate 95 can be a nightmare when the weather is good but add a bit of rain and it becomes dangerous and if you add heavy wet snow and quickly falling temperatures it quickly becomes a recipe for disaster.
We have all seen the pictures of the stranded vehicles filled with families returning from the holidays. Over the years I have learned to avoid I-95 unless the weather is perfect and traffic flow is lighter. On our many trips south or to Florida we find other routes to travel. Snow from this storm fell as far south as Birmingham, Alabama and even the Gulf Coast of Florida had a few flurries.
Southwestern Pennsylvania was spared the snow and ice from the first storm but was expected to get our first decent snow of the season this past Thursday as a similar southern storm was forecast to take a tract a bit further north thus increasing our chance for snow.
It has been an odd fall and early winter with the fall colors some two-three weeks later than normal, a very late first frost, and no real snow until this past week which is quite unusual. Temperatures have been on the mild side with any cold snaps being short-lived and followed by nice mild sunny days. December was eight degrees above normal. Last week some Arctic air did make it into the United States as the La Nina Weather pattern relaxed a bit. Even with a few cold days we still have avoided the frigid air that normally visits in January.
Over the next two weeks we are looking for temperatures to be just a little colder than average with a few mornings in the low teens but we are not looking for any real Arctic below zero weather.
In 1977 the Uniontown area saw lows of 17 below zero on the 13th and 15 on the 14th. On the 9th the afternoon high did not get above zero.
Other frigid January Uniontown days included 18 below on the 19th in 1994 and 21 below on the 21st and 22nd of that same year. On January 5th way back in 1904 the little town of Smethport, Pennsylvania located in McKean County recorded our state蘑菇视频 lowest temperature when it dropped to an amazing 42 degrees below zero. Uniontown averages three days a season with temperatures below zero although the past few years we have not seen much in the way of below zero weather.
On a brighter side the January high for the area was 73 back on the 14th of 1932 and 71 was reached on the 13th. Average temperatures for Uniontown over the next 10 days are a high of 39 and lows of 22. We will also pick up an additional 13 minutes of daylight as we come close to the coldest average day on the 28th when averages are 38 and 20 and from there it蘑菇视频 all uphill until late July.