Weather by the Numbers, 4/6/2010

* 88 seems to be the most popular high temperature around Alabama yesterday. That was the high in Albertville, Fort Payne, Huntsville, Auburn, Birmingham, Montgomery, Troy, Pinson, Clanton, Alexander City, Sylacauga and Lafayette. The 88 tied the record for Birmingham for April 5. Dothan had a high of 89.

* 91 (like summer!) was the official high at a NWS coop observer site six miles SW of Montgomery!

* 76 was the high at Brookley Field in Mobile. The good ole sea breeze kept them cooler because the water temperature of the Gulf of Mexico has not had time to heat up.

* 65 was the water temperature at the Alabama State Docks at mid-morning today. Even way far down into the Gulf, 74 land miles south of Dauphin Island, it was only 68.

* 78 is the expected high in Detroit this afternoon, 83 in Dallas-Forth Worth and 72 in Des Moines. Seems like much of the USA revolted at the lingering cold. For example, South Florida had the coldest winter on record. Des Moines is home to powerful 50,000 watt WHO Radio that I used to listen to as a kid early each morning to plot a weather map.

* 60 inches of snow on the ground at Whittier, Alaska. They received some additional snow in the last 24 hours.

* 98 inches of snow now at Alta, Utah, a ski resort in the Wasatch Mountains east and SE of Salt Lake City. Fresh snow fell overnight.

* 98 was the hottest in the good ole USA yesterday at Fort Stockton, Texas.

* 6 below zero was the coldest in the lower 48 this morning at Mammoth Lakes, California. They received an additional 16 inches in the last 24 hours.

* 20 below zero was the coldest in Alaska at good old Deadhorse.

* 13% of the lower 48 had a blanket of snow this morning compared to 40% a month ago today.

* 288 inches of snow was on the ground this morning at Alpine Meadows, California in the southern part of the Sierra-Nevada range. The high country of the mountain west always has heavy snow on the ground this time of year. There was 200 inches of snow on the ground at Squaw Flat, Idaho.

* 274 is the number of days in the growing season at Greensboro in Hale County. That means the number of days between the latest freeze in spring and the first one in autumn. Mind you, that is just an average and it can flucuate considerably from year to year.

* 148 is the number of tornadoes that touched down during the super outbreak of April 3-4, 1974.

* 95 of those tornadoes were rated F2 or stronger. (The new EF ratings were not in effect at that time.)

* 30 of the tornadoes were rated F4 or F5.

* 11 states reported fatalities.

* 90 miles was the longest track tornado.

* 2,598 was the total path length of tornadoes during that outbreak. You get that number by adding up the path length of all the 148 tornadoes.

* 15 was the number of tornadoes on the ground at the same time.

* 48 is the number of tornadoes that became killers.

NOTE: I am still going to post some accounts of individual tornadoes that occurred in Alabama on the night of April 3. They were awesome. Remember also that some tornadoes were still occurring down in South Alabama on the morning of April 4. It was a long scary night–one that I will never forget.

MOLLY UPDATE
This will be very brief, but I did want to thank everyone for their concerns about Molly. She is steadily improving, but still a way to go. She was actually sitting by me watching the final four basketball game last night. I really do think it triggered a thought with her and she immediately plowed into her big supply of balls and scattered them at my feet. It was her first ballgame since getting attacked.

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