Monday, January 28, 2019

Creme-de-la-Creme of Cold Air

If I remember correctly, my colleague Lance Bosart, who has been a Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at the University at Albany for 50 years (see this American Scientist article), considers -40ºC the "creme-de-la-creme" of cold at at 850 mb.  

The NAM forecast valid 1800 UTC 29 January (10 AM CST Tuesday) has a small patch of sub -40 850 mb air over northwest Minnesota. 


No point in specifying F or C since -40 is the magic temperature at which the two scales converge (i.e., -40ºF = -40ºC).  

Glad to be watching it from half a world away.  For Utahn's, be grateful you are on the western side of the continental divide.  

2 comments:

  1. The Arrowhead 135 is taking place right under that cold bit as we speak! There are people out running and biking and skiing in that frigid cold....

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  2. In addition to -40F and -40C being the same temperature, that is also the temperature at which homogeneous nucleation occurs in supercooled water producing ice crystals. :)

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