Forecast for the week of October 12th + how terrain can affect weather!
By: Paige Klobucnik
Hey guys! I hope y'all enjoyed the slight cool down we got to see last week. I know I enjoyed the cooler air when I went to work before the sun rose! Unfortunately, at the beginning of this week we will be seeing a slight warm up, with temperatures in DFW to stay around the low 90s. There are isolated showers that are possible through this afternoon until tomorrow afternoon, so you may see some dark clouds hanging around the sky at times.
I’m not sure if you guys are regular state fair goers, but I have been going almost yearly since moving to Texas. This is the last week that the state fair is open, so you may be wondering what days this week would be the best day to go! The thing about the beginning of October, is it can be variable yearly on how fast we cool down for fall. Some years, this cool down happens sooner, with temperatures for most of October sticking around the high 60s to low 70s. I remember there would be some years that I would go as a kid and it would still feel super hot, with other years I would need to bring a light sweater! With temperatures being above normal for the first half of this week, it may not be the best day to go to the fair. But going into the second half of the week, a cold front will drop temperatures to below normal this weekend. There is a chance of some showers, mostly through Wednesday afternoon through Thursday night, so I would recommend the best day to go to be Friday or Saturday!
As you guys know, I started my atmospheric sciences degree at the University of Washington in Seattle, and as you can imagine, the weather in the PNW is much different than what we see in Texas. This is because the terrain of a region can greatly alter the weather, because of how it can affect air flow. Studying in Seattle, I gained a deeper interest into how specific terrain can affect the weather, so I thought it would be cool to talk a bit about that.
Firstly, mountain ranges and lines of hills cause something called orographic lifting, this occurs when a moving mass of moist air is forced upward because of a high barrier. As wind pushes air up the slope of a mountain (windward side), the air rises to higher altitudes where it expands and cools. As air cools to its dew point (the temperature to which air must be cooled to become saturated), moisture condenses into clouds, leading to heavy rain on this windward side. On the other side of the mountain (the leeward side), the wind descends, where it compresses and warms up. This creates a dry region known as a rain shadow. So essentially, if you live somewhere with mountains or high hills, the side you reside in can greatly affect the kind of weather you see. There are also these really cool clouds that can develop over mountains, called lenticular clouds, which I saw a lot over Mount Rainier in Seattle, they are lens shaped!
Lastly, I wanna talk about the Texas terrain and what it does to our weather. In North and West Texas, where we see flat plains, this lack of borders allows air masses to clash, causing intense thunderstorms, hail and overall severe weather. We also live in an urban “heat island” along with other major cities like Houston and Austin, dense pavement and tall buildings absorb and hold onto heat, this extra heat and surface friction can cause passing thunderstorms to strengthen, while also potentially weakening some incoming cold fronts.
Thank you for reading! A bit of a longer post this week but I get excited when I talk about the weather in Seattle! It is cool to say I studied atmospheric sciences in 2 completely different cities, lots of different weather phenomena and I am very grateful to have had such a well rounded education in that aspect! :)
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