WRAL WeatherCenter Blog

Edward's impossible sun in "New Moon"

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:32:50 -0500

You'd think a vampire who must avoid sunlight lest he reveal himself might become pretty knowledgeable about where the sun can appear in the sky.

Wet Week Wrap-up

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 12:16:09 -0500

The combination of moisture from Ida and an intense low pressure center that formed northeast of Ida on a frontal boundary along our coast brought some widespread, persistent rain and gusty winds last week, with impressive rainfall totals across most of the state and peak winds that were high enough to cause some power outages and take down a few trees in spots, with some of these resulting in property damage.

Rain from Ida?

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 09:49:37 -0500

After a stretch of weekends with less than ideal weather, we really turned things around with a beauty just behind us, with deep blue skies, a few scattered cirrus clouds, and temperatures that topped out at 66 on Saturday and 76 Sunday, all thanks to a departing high pressure center over the Atlantic that continues to extend back into the state from the east as we start the week today.

A Gray October?

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 06:26:22 -0500

We often think of October as a transition month that features a number of outbreaks of crisp, cool autumn air and bright blue skies, and historically, climate records tell us that we average almost 13 days with "fair" skies, defined in the records as having 8/10 or more of the sky free of opaque clouds on average during the day. If this October seemed a little gray to you, though, you weren't mistaken. We ended up with 17 "cloudy" days (8/10 or more of the sky covered by opaque clouds) at the Raleigh-Durham airport, compared to a normal of 11 cloudy days, along with 9 "partly cloudy" days and 5 "fair " days.

NOAA's Winter Outlook

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 10:32:29 -0400

As with all long-range seasonal forecasts, the recently issued winter outlook from the National Weather Service can only provide a general overview of how the winter season may work out across the United States, with few of the specifics regarding wintry precipitation that we'd all like to know about. Unfortunately, while the science of climate forecasting does allow for some skill with climatological outlooks, it does not allow for meaningful day to day or week to week forecasts, or assessments of likely snow and ice amounts, as there are simply too many short-term influences involved that can not be foreseen more than a few days to a couple of weeks in advance.

Bundle up for a cold winter! 1,604 worms can't be wrong!

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 17:15:16 -0400

Step aside, Greg Fishel. There's a new wintertime prognosticator in town. A woolly worm named Wilbur won the annual Woolly Worm Festival in Banner Elk last weekend. He belongs to 9-year-old Noah Jens of Chapel Hill. By virtue of his winning a series of races, he is the official forecaster for the winter.

Another growing season bites the dust (soon)...

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 17:14:07 -0400

Much of our area saw our first frost of the season last night, which means that the end of the growing season is just around the corner. Some areas actually dipped to below freezing briefly this morning, but most of the area dodged the cold bullet this time around. According to the National Weather Service, most areas in central North Carolina see the growing season come to an end by the last week of October or first week of November; although, there can be some give to those dates from year to year. The table below summarizes the earliest, latest, and average freezes for the Triangle and Fayetteville.

What are the odds of that?

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 16:58:27 -0400

Ever wanted to know what the odds were of being struck by lightning? What about the odds of being injured by a waterspout or dust devil? There's a new website that's putting numbers to all those odds. It's called the Book of Odds, and you can search on just about anything— weather-related or otherwise. Each calculation comes backed up with some kind of source material and a statement of the site's confidence in the actual number.

What is "normal" anyway?

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 16:24:19 -0400

So just what does it mean to be "normal", anyway? Most nights, we'll show a recap of the day's high and low temperatures, and most often, we'll include information about the "normal" high and low for the day. But what does that really mean?

A Cloud Query Answered

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 10:09:25 -0400

A former viewer who recently moved away from the Raleigh area sent us a group of photos taken by her son when some thunderstorms passed through through Cumming, GA a while back. She asked if we could identify the type of cloud seen in the two attached images.