PM Update: Nice into this evening; slight rain chances return Monday
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Through tonight: Skies are partly cloudy, with a slight increase in clouds as the night wears on. In the early-morning hours, we have a slight chance of a few showers, perhaps even a wake-up rumble of thunder. Mid-60s to around 70 degrees for low temperatures are about as cool as we’ll get.
View the current weather at The Washington Post.
Tomorrow (Monday): A slight chance of a shower or storm continues. Humidity and cloud cover should remain moderate at worst, as high temperatures top out, generally, in the mid-80s. East of D.C. may have a slightly higher afternoon chance of rain — especially thunderstorm — activity.
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Overnight, rain chances are gone and skies look mostly clear. Low temperatures get nice and comfortable, in the low to mid-60s, though perhaps not completely open-all-windows weather.
Forensic meteorological analysis: Doppler radar-measured wind
Our Capital Weather Gang severe storms expert, Jeff Halverson, evaluated Doppler radar wind measurements from Saturday’s storms.
Halverson identified six distinct regions of downbursts and downburst clusters. He found “peak Doppler winds for the afternoon … characterized in the 70-80 mph range with the one instance of 93 mph. The six discrete downbursts and downburst clusters developed in a north to south sequence from 4:30-5:30 p.m.”
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Here are his findings on the initiation time — when the storm erupted — and the peak Doppler-indicated winds in each of the six regions:
Bethesda, Md. : 4:35 p.m., 71 mph
College Park, Md.: 4:49 p.m., 68 mph
D.C. cluster: 4:49 p.m., 79 mph
Falls Church-Arlington-Alexandria-Clinton, Md., cluster: 4:57 p.m., 93 mph
Suitland, Md.: 5:09 p.m., 68 mph
Woodlawn-Accokeek-Waldorf, Md., cluster: 5:20 p.m., 82 mph
Important context is that the Doppler values come from airflow a few thousand feet above the surface (ground level). They indicate the potential momentum that can be brought to the ground. Luckily, we didn’t quite get to 93-mph gusts at ground level; the strongest gust we’ve found is 84 mph in the D.C. area.
What’s telling is his impression that “I don’t recall a system that produced this many discrete zones of downbursts in the DMV.” Be sure to read more on the Saturday storms in our full debrief.
Come chat tonight during our weekly Sunday Sunset Live Q&A and we can discuss how any cleanup is going in your neighborhood. Tune in at 8:22 p.m.
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Source: The Washington Post
