(WHSV) - Saturday our area experienced “the wedge". We experienced cooler temperatures, low level clouds, and little temperature variation.
Cold air damming, which is commonly referred to as “the wedge” is most common in the fall and winter months.
High pressure sets up in the northeast and brings a northeasterly wind down south. In order for cold air damming to work, you have to have mountains. The windward side of the mountains (in this case the eastern side) collects cold air and pins it across the Mid-Atlantic and southeastern states. It is a very complicated event to predict for a meteorologist if you are on the edge of the wedge.
Another tricky element when forecasting this is that it is not detectable at higher levels in the atmosphere because warm air is above the cold air pinned low to the ground. Usually, the wedge creates low level clouds which insulates temperatures. For example, Downtown Harrisonburg had a low of 65 degrees Saturday morning with a high temperature of 73 degrees.
Our Charlie Obaugh Massanutten Skycam was pretty much in the clouds. Low clouds that create light precipitation like today become undetectable on radar in our area since radar beams come from Sterling, Virginia. At the point that radar is looking at our area it is above the clouds several thousand feet in elevation.
The wedge can create sharp temperature gradients. Temperatures could be 20 degrees warmer just 20 or so miles outside of the wedge. Meteorologists have to determine where that cut line is. Fortunately for us, the cut line was down in the Carolinas.
In these kind of situations, if you travel over the Appalachians to the west, temperatures are much warmer. Today in Winchester, the high was 70 degrees. Clarksburg, West Virginia recorded a high of 85 degrees today. Typically, the wedge has a greater effect in the winter time.
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September 13, 2020 at 08:38AM
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What is “the wedge"? - WHSV
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