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Eastern Weather
Name: Jeanne
Status: educator
Age: 50s
Location: N/A
Country: N/A
Date: 2000-2001
Question:
I am enrolled in "Physics for Teachers" at Central Missouri
State
University, Warrensburg, MO. I have been researching a personal inquiry
for this class, with no success. I hope you will be able to provide
some information for me, or give me some thoughts on where to direct my
search.
My inquiry is this:
We relocated to Missouri in 1984. I experienced my first ice storm
ever, that first week-end in March. I have noticed in the subsequent
years, that when the wind blows from the east, especially during the
winter months, our weather is more severe than usual. It seems those
are the times when we receive significant amounts of ice or accumulating
snows. Is there a meteorological reason for this phenomena, and does it
have a specific name?
Replies:
Most ice storms are associated with
fronts revolving with one tail in a low pressure center. It would strike me
that an easterly (or maybe even more a northeasterly) wind would indicate that
the air would associated with a low moving north of you. I would assume in
this scenario that the you would have a wind shift - SE to NE. This represents
frontal passage and colder air would move in from the north. If the pressure
system were to move south of you, you would have winds from the west or
southwest - most likely bringing you Gulf of Mexico air and little chance of
ice.
Watch where the lows move and see if this holds true.
Larry Krengel
Jeanne,
What you appear to be describing (east winds) is a situation when a low
pressure
area is passing directly through or just to the south of where you live. This
is very common in the central to southern Midwest during late winter
especially,
with cold air pushing down out of Canada against moist air pushing up out
of the
Gulf of Mexico. The overrunning of warm air over the cold air can result in big
ice storms or, if the low pressure system and associated cold front are strong
enough you can get significant snow. Although I don't know of a specific name
for the condition, these storms tend to track up the Ohio River valley after
leaving your area, dumping large accumulations of snow throughout southern and
central Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio and into western Pennsylvania and
lowe New York. I live near Chicago, and in Illinois, these storms are legend for the
amounts of snow that they can dump in the central part of the state.
In fact, sometimes we meteorologists in Chicago complain that these storms always seem to
give the central part of the state more interesting winter weather than we get
in the northern parts (I know that saying that sounds a bit deranged, but we like "BIG" weather). I hope that this information helps you.
David Cook,
Meteorologist working at Argonne National Laboratory
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