The recent four days have been quite a strange change of pace in the tendency for this summer. Instead of a relatively warm weather, which seems to have settled since June, a couple of cloudy and rather windy days passed. Despite the fact that the cold air fronts are only starting to move towards the northeast (Cool Pattern Ahead para. 1), Ohio has already experienced a couple of quite cold days.
Over the course of these four days, the changes in the temperature were quite unnoticeable; since the cold air front had already headed north, such cool weather could be observed since the last week. However, slight temperature variations still occurred; for example, on July, 7th, the temperature of the air was around 80° F, while the next day, it dropped to 72–74° F due to the northward movement of the cold air front.
On July, 8, however, the air temperature started rising again, which could be explained by the fact that little to no clouds could be observed. On July, 9, the temperature dropped again, reaching 73° F this time, with clouds emerging. The same phenomenon could be observed on July, 9, while the last day, it was clear and the temperature reached 82 ° F in the afternoon (Ohio Weather Maps para. 1).
The shifts in air pressure were also quite obvious and just as predictable. Indeed, on July, 8, it reached the 1008 mb mark and started rising the next day, hitting 1001 mb in the afternoon. Seeing that the relative humidity shifted from 47% on July, 8 to 63% on July, 9, a major weather change was anticipated on July, 9; however, the reality did not quite meet the expectations.
After the aforementioned shifts in the barometric pressure and the relative humidity of the air, it started raining slightly; however, the rain occurred not on July, 9 in the morning, as it could be expected, but on July, 8 at 10 p.m. Such a shift in the weather was quite surprising; it was assumed that the process of air saturation should be much longer and that the rain should start the next day (Lutgens and Tarbuck “The Atmosphere in Motion” 447).
However, due to a very rapid change in the weather conditions and a steep rise of relative humidity, the rain occurred somewhat earlier and could be observed in the evening. The remaining two days, with little change in the relative humidity, very similar rates of air pressure and the temperature of 76°–82° F, were quite predictable, and the weather was stable, with only a few clouds in the sky.
Overall, the analysis of the temperature and the relative humidity of the air could help predict the weather for the four days rather precisely. However, my experience has also shown how unstable the process of weather change is. It is quite hard to predict the exact movement of the air front, which makes weather forecasting very complicated and not quite certain (Lutgens and Tarbuck “Weather Patterns and Severe Weather” 473).
As the observations carried out over the past four days have shown, the Ohio area already experiences a considerable change in weather conditions, though the rare summer cold blast is only approaching, as the weather forecasts say (Cool Pattern Ahead para. 1). The observations show clearly that, though weather forecasts provide credible information most of the time, not all of the forecasts necessarily come true due to the specifics of the region, the changes in the air temperature, etc. The observation proved to be a unique experiment worth carrying out.
Works Cited
Cool Pattern Ahead. 2014.
Lutgens, Frederick K. and Edward J. Tarbuck. “The Atmosphere in Motion.” Foundations of Earth Science. 7th ed. Prentice Hall. 2010. 445-468. Print.
—. “Weather Patterns and Severe Weather.” Foundations of Earth Science. 7th ed. Prentice Hall. 2010. 468-500. Print.
Ohio Weather Maps. 2014.