Forecast: A chilly Sunday, but turning milder

It's 32 here this AM on the river SW of Front Royal. The dewpoint is also 32, with a slight amount of frost on the roof of the car. The windshield is damp with dew but probably supercooled.

hi there. just checking in - and as usual, i'm wondering about snow.... do you guys have any insight as to whether this iceland volcano is the "right kind" and big enough to have any effect on our weather? specifically, will it make it colder next winter - thus increasing the chances of snow?

My thinking is that this eruption does not significantly cool the earth, though Laki did cool the earth in a similar eruption during the 1700's. The guidance I am now hearing is that the current eruption's ash is not high enough in the atmosphere for a significant cooling effect.

I mostly agree with Bombo47jea. We are not talking about Toba or even Pinatubo that hurled SO2 20 miles up into the stratosphere where it hung out for a few years. 7 miles is not nearly enough to do that.

OTOH there are still going to be some low level aerosol effects, probably more low level cloud cover and short term cooling from that.

hhhmmmm..... particulates not HIGH enough in the atmosphere...? too bad...oh well.

Yet, Pinatubo only erupted for nine hours, so if this Volcano goes on like this for weeks, or even months, then it will obviously have an impact upon the Global Climate (At least a regionalized portion of it), regardless of the altitude of its particulate expulsion. Pinatubo released between 15-30 million tons of SO2, so if/when Eyjafjallajokul's output reaches that range, then I would say that it stands a very real chance of causing substantial Global, if not at least Polar climate effects. If it stops now however, then yes, I do believe that any climate impact would be extremely minimal, and extremely localized to boot.

When will the high pollen counts start to decrease?!

re: questions about the volcano

We'll have a feature on this tomorrow...

Pollen counts should be decreasing now as the oak blossoms are tending to dry up and fall. The remaining trees [hickory, walnut, chestnut, etc.] generally produce less pollen than the oaks. I was even seeing huge oak-blossom "rollers" or "dust bunnies" blowing around on the streets in yesterday's and Friday's breezes.

Some TV mets are hinting that next weekend could be a "total washout". This may be a bit exaggerated, as temperatures are expected to hit the seventies or eighties...thus implying some periods of heavy convective rainfall or even severe weather but not a total washout [which to me would imply 2 or 3 days of raw, windy fiftyish weather with continual or near-continual rain!]. It's again being said we "need" the rain and that DCA is "2 inches behind"...again I think this is a bit exaggerated, as we have plenty of groundwater from the recent snowmelt. As I see things, we could go until Labor Day or so without rain before we need to worry about a real groundwater shortage around here.

I have noticed the ground is a little dryer, like the top two inches are kind of dry. so, I think i can go ahead and do some outdoor painting because it won't rain for a few days.

I heard that washout term too.

I think it is irresponsible reporting. too far out, should have said chance of rain at this point, or chance of thunderstorms.

washout to me is all day rain. Are they saying we have a chance at that?

thanks for the volcano talk. i'll check in later for the volcano post.