Observed Weather Conditions

Frosty cold conditions greeting many mountain valleys across the central-southern Appalachians into morning hours of Wednesday, May 15, with a few specific minimum temperatures including:
Big Cherry Valley: 29 degrees
Burkes Garden: 30 degrees
Frost 3 NE, WV: 30 degrees
Jefferson, NC: 31 degrees
Beckley, WV: 32 degrees
Boone, NC: 32 degrees
Hacker Valley, WV: 32 degrees
Shady Valley, TN: 32 degrees
Transou, NC: 33 degrees
Lewisburg, WV: 33 degrees
Bayard, WV: 34 degrees
Radford: 34 degrees
Bluefield, WV: 34 degrees
Buckeye, WV: 35 degrees
Clintwood 1 W: 36 degrees
Galax: 36 degrees
Sandyville, WV: 36 degrees
White Sulpur Springs, WV: 36 degrees

Since frost typically forms at ground level when official air temperatures, at 5-6 feet above ground level, reach 36 degrees, I have listed sites with min temperatures at or below the 36 degree threshold.

Locations not in Virginia have the state identifier included.

Thursday morning, May 16, also featured scattered frost in coldest mountain valleys with temperatures dropping into the middle 30s.

Looking Forward_Warm Pattern

Above average temperatures are now looking like they will dominate the remaining days of May 2019, with more ensembles of the 51-member European Model cluster coming into agreement.

A southwesterly flow aloft is now being predicted to intensify into next week (see 6-10 day period below for the May 22-26 period).

Although a general below average precipitation regime is forecast, locally heavy showers and downpours in thunderstorms will occasionally be possible with day to day chances being dictated by not only upper air waves but surface outflow boundaries and instability. A main focus of strong-severe thunderstorms will tend to move around the periphery of sinking air aloft, with clusters of storms rotating around the outer edges of heat to the west and north of the Mountain Empire…eventually this will change, so stay tuned for later updates.