[PBARC] FW: Winter Weather Update for 1/22/03 AM

[WOLF, EARNEST G]

> Winter Storm Forecast
> Issued: 10:00 AM Wednesday January 22, 2003
> Major Arctic Outbreak Expected Across The Eastern U.S., Including The Gulf Coast 
> Late this morning, very cold Arctic Air is building rapidly southward across the Central and Northern Great Plains, eastward to the mid and upper Mississippi Valley. Temperatures are currently running from 0 to -20 across a large portion of the Dakotas and Minnesota and -20 to -40 across adjacent portions of south-central Canada. We do expect this airmass to move rapidly south and east toward the Gulf coast and Atlantic Seaboard over the next 24 to 48 hours bringing some of the coldest air in the past 5 or 10 years with the possibility of widespread record breaking low temperatures. 
> Along the Gulf coast early Friday and Saturday, we're forecasting temperatures near 20 to the lower 20s across southeast Texas and southwest Louisiana, low to mid 20s away from Lake Pontchartrain south and west of the city of New Orleans. On the Mississippi coast, morning lows on Friday could drop into the upper teens to lower 20s with the lower to mid 20s expected early Saturday. The Florida Panhandle may see lows in the 15-20 degree range on Friday morning and 20-25 on Saturday morning. Across the Florida Peninsula, widespread freezing temperatures are expected except along the southern coast. Temperatures are expected to fall into the upper 20s in Tampa on Friday, with the lower to mid 20s across the central Peninsula east of Tampa. Fort Myers should see temperatures fall to near freezing early Friday, while the Miami Beach area should see lows in the upper 30s to near 40. Across inland portions of south Florida expect the temperature to fall into the upper 20s to near !
30. On Saturday across Florida, temperatures will remain cold, but average about 3 to 5 degrees warmer. Across the Ohio Valley, temperatures should fall to -5 to 5 with highs averaging from 10 to 15 on Friday and Saturday. 
> In the long range, another surge of very cold Arctic air will plunge southward across the central and eastern U.S. early next week. Although the core of this next batch of Arctic air is expected to track a a little farther east, we still cannot rule out another light freeze across portions of the central and eastern Gulf coast. It does appear, however, that the Ohio Valley and northeast will bear the brunt of this next surge of cold air. 
> 


--- StripMime Report -- processed MIME parts ---
multipart/alternative
  text/plain (text body -- kept)
  text/html
The reason this message is shown is because the post was in HTML
or had an attachment.  Attachments are not allowed.  To learn how
to post in Plain-Text go to: http://www.expita.com/nomime.html  ---