WHNT Weather

Close Look at Cooler Weather!

Posted on: 10:01 pm, August 8, 2012, by Jason Simpson

It’s hard not to get a little excited about the cooler, drier air headed this way! By Friday evening, a cold front will be south of the Tennessee Valley, the rain will be ending, and we will get a little taste of Fall!

Most model guidance produces something called “MOS” which stands for Model Output Statistics. In the case of the weekend forecast, I believe some of the MOS numbers are a little contaminated by what the computer model thinks it should be based on climatology. It’s not supposed to get into the 50s this time of year, but we know it does!

Back in 2009 in Huntsville, temperatures got as cool as 57º on the morning of August 24th; on August 13, 2004, we set a record for the coolest August temperature with a low of 51 degrees! The last sub-60 degree reading in Muscle Shoals in the month of August was on August 31, 2009: 57 degrees. The coolest August temperature on record at Northwest Alabama Regional Airport (Muscle Shoals) is 52º set on August 15, 2004.

We don’t have records dating back that far for most communities in the Tennessee Valley, but if you pay close attention, you realize that it is usually cooler in places like Winchester, Tennessee that Huntsville on an unusually cool night. Here’s the model data (not the climate-biased MOS) for Huntsville and Winchester. This looks very nice!