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Weather Journal: Extreme cold not far away, and a look at snow prospects (guesses) for winter ahead

Kevin Myatt 45 min ago

Virginia Tech recorded the lowest temperature in the “lower 48” on Sunday. ... Not the Virginia Tech campus in Blacksburg, but a sensor placed and maintained by Virginia Tech’s meteorology program in the Canaan Valley of West Virginia.

The sensor, listed as 5 miles east of Davis, West Virginia, recorded a low temperature of 7 degrees on Sunday, which was the coldest temperature reported in the contiguous 48 states, according to a daily statement issued at 1 a.m. Monday by a central office of the National Weather Service.

(Contiguous 48 states are the U.S. not including Alaska and Hawaii. We often say “lower 48” but that’s not really accurate, as the truly “lower” 48 would exclude Alaska and Maine and include Hawaii. Also it’s not really accurate to say “continental U.S.” since Alaska is part of the North American continent also. Alaska would almost always have the lowest national temperature for all 50 states.)

Virginia Tech professor Dave Carroll and students enrolled in his instrumentation field course the past several years have established several sensors at remote locations in the Appalachians, including at Bald Knob above Mountain Lake and Grayson Highlands State Park a mile high in elevation.

The Canaan Valley National Wildlife Refuge sensor is located in a “temperature sink” where, under certain clear, calm, low-humidity conditions, cold air drains downward into a protected valley and doesn’t readily drain out. So temperatures are excessively cold compared to surrounding locations.

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You can check up on the current conditions of any of Virginia Tech’s remote mountain weather stations at this web site: https://vtmountainstudies.wordpress.com/mountain-weather-stations/.

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Weather Journal appears on Wednesdays.

Contact Kevin Myatt at kevin.myatt@roanoke.com. Follow him on Twitter @kevinmyattwx.