Thursday, March 19, 2009

Scattered Showers and Cooler This Evening

The cold front has moved through the metro area and will continue southeastward through the rest of the state tonight. Temperatures have fallen from the upper 60s into the mid 50s in the past 3 hours, and a broad area of light to moderate rain has developed across the area. Expect the showers to continue this evening, with the rain tapering off from NW to SE late tonight. Most areas will pick up rainfall totals in the range of .10" to .25".

Cold Front Coming Thursday Afternoon

A cold front is just moving into far western Virginia this morning, and will reach the Richmond Metro Area by 3 p.m. It will shift winds from the Southwest to the North, and cooler temperatures will gradually follow suit. Low temperatures Friday morning will fall into the 30's, and the official First Day of Spring will not feel much like it, with highs only in the low 50's.

Spring officially starts at 7:44 a.m. Friday, when the Sun's solar rays are directly "over" the Equator, as the Earth's tilt shifts most of the Sun's incident rays to the Northern Hemisphere instead of the Southern Hemisphere. We pass into our warmer season as we receive more hours of solar radiation, while "down under" they lose hours of daylight and pass into their colder season.