Yesterday's official high at DCA was 55, but I call shenanigans. The hourly report, only four minutes after the purported high, was 50. In fact, the temps ranged between 48 and 51 for most of the day. Temperatures just don't change that quickly in that sort of an airmass. That 55 was bogus.

Question for the Capital Weather gang -- is there a short wave frequency for weather ? I am going camping in Stafford, VA with 14 girl scouts this weekend and I want to make sure we are alert about the weather. Is it better just to buy a battery powered weather radio ? I have a crank powered AM/FM/SW radio.

I know you guys usually only do DC weather, but I have a question.

We are driving down to Georgia on Friday, and driving back on Sunday.

On Friday, do you think we'll hit that rain all the way down I-95/I-85, or will it just be in this area? We're probably going to leave pretty early on Friday morning (well before 530 AM).

Jenn: NOAA's website says: "NWR requires a special radio receiver or scanner capable of picking up the signal." More info.

Weatherdude: Friday looks wet for the drive south, especially the first half of the day. The drive home should be drier.

@WSL:

I'd be interested in seeing more info on that. I wonder if Steve S. is lurking around, he might be able to shed some light on it

West Springfield (Accotink Lake/Mixing Bowl)storm total (Sunday-Monday) = 4.03"

Could anyone shed some light on what's causing these lingering below-normal temps? Is there an end in sight? My plants are confused, and are consequently taking it out on me.
Thanks!

Are we going to get a storm wrap-up post????

WSL: It's possible the sun came out briefly pushing the high up to 55 for a few minutes. There were brief cloud breaks late in the afternoon here in Arlington.

Another thing which could have happened was a "high" of 55 degrees at 12:01 AM yesterday followed by lower fifties the rest of the day. This sort of thing often happens overnight with a strong cold frontal passage just after midnight during the winter. The high could be around 62 just after midnight followed by temperatures dropping into the thirties or even lower all day. In this case meteorologists say that the temperature did not follow the usual diurnal cycle.

Tim: Instead of a formal storm wrap-up post, per a lot of requests we've got a drought update posted today which speaks to rainfall implications of the storm. We may provide some more info on the storm later...

Rishi -- As per our forecast, it looks like near normal is about the best we'll do over the next several days. And it doesn't look good for above-normal temps in the Climate Prediction Center's 6-10 day outlook. Only slightly more encouraging for 8-14 days out.

Re: Yesterday's high of 55.

FWIW, Tony Perkins on Ch. 5 brought this up this morning and stated that the NWS was in fact in error on this. He said the actual high was 52.

With the Joint Services Open House at Andrews AFB this weekend...is there any way the clouds and rain will push thru earlier or miss us all together for this weekend? Also I'm going there on Fri and am hoping that I will do so!

Thanks.

Re: Joint Services Open House/this weekend -- Unfortunately, this far out and with the uncertain weather pattern, it's hard as of yet to get any more specific than Matt's forecast above. Best advice is to keep checking back with us as the week goes on.

Thanks, Dan!

One can only hope.

New to this blog...but love the writing style. Keep it fun!

New to this blog...but love the writing style. Keep it fun!

Carrie, welcome! -- Was it the headline on this post that brought you here? How do you think your movie will fare?

The DCA high for the 12th was 52 in the preliminary climo report.

Thanks for the welcome Dan! If you can predict fair weather for my opening weekend I think the movie might fare very well. Thanks for thinking of me.