Stormy End to May, Wintry Start to June!

2015-06-01 17:47:18.000 – Tom Padham, Weather Observer/Meteorologist

The past few days have seen some pretty wild weather on the summit, with heavy rain and thunderstorms giving way to a brief taste of winter to start off the month of June. Saturday evening multiple lines of thunderstorms crossed the summit, with very heavy rain and winds gusting to hurricane force at the height of the storm. Due to the slow nature of the storms, lightning continued to strike the summit and the immediate surrounding area for nearly 4 hours straight, making my evening observations a strictly indoor process. Lightning is arguably nature’s most powerful spectacle, and it is not something we take lightly when you’re the highest point around for roughly 1,000 miles. We even had a few very loud direct strikes to the building, which was more than enough to make me jump out of my chair and definitely added some excitement to the night.

Heavy rain continued for much of the day yesterday as low pressure slowly drifted along the Mid-Atlantic coast, with 1.20” of rain falling for the day. Overnight temperatures slowly fell into the mid-30s as rain continued, with temperatures dipping down to just below freezing late this morning. Freezing rain has resulted in a light coating of glaze ice as of this writing, with more freezing rain and glaze ice expected overnight. After seeing temperatures all the way up to 60 degrees on the summit just this past week, it seems the summit is reminding us that wintry conditions can still happen any time of year. Luckily for those of us on the summit weary of winter, high pressure building in Wednesday should result in clearing out of the clouds, with temperatures climbing back to more typical readings in the mid to upper 40s over the next several days.

 

Tom Padham, Weather Observer/Meteorologist