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| Image Credit: WLTX-TV. |
Columbia,
South Carolina markets itself as being “Famously Hot” and this weekend it lived
up to that billing in ways never imagined.
The heat wave that hit the area was unprecedented in speed and
intensity. Fortunately everyone knew it was
coming, but it was still under forecast.
It
took only one day to be in the heat wave.
The high temperature on Wednesday was 89 F, but it reached 100 F on
Thursday, the start of the heat wave.
However, the peak of the heat wave intensity was on Friday when the
temperature soared to an all-time record high of 109 F at the Columbia
Metropolitan Airport and 110 F at Hamilton-Owens Field, just south of downtown
Columbia. The temperature at the airport
had never been above 107 F.
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| High temperatures for Friday, June 29, 2012, in South Carolina. Image Credit: WLTX-TV. |
In
addition, it was not until Saturday when the co-op reports came into the
National Weather Service that it was discovered that the all-time record high
for the state of South Carolina was broken.
The previous all-time high was 111 F set at Calhoun Falls and Blackville
in 1925 and in Camden in 1954. It
reached 113 F in Johnston and the campus of the University of South Carolina in
Columbia, Friday afternoon. This still
has to be confirmed by the state climatology office, but it is very likely that
one or both will stand as the new all-time record high for the state of South
Carolina.
Here
is a listing of the high temperatures Friday from the National Weather Service
Forecast Office in Columbia, South Carolina:
STATIONS HIGH TEMPERATURES
...ASOS
STATIONS...
AUGUSTA
BUSH APT GA 106
AUGUSTA
DANIEL APT GA 107
ORANGEBURG
AIRPORT SC 101
COLUMBIA
METRO APT SC 109
COLUMBIA
OWENS APT SC 110
...COOP
STATIONS...
BAMBERG
SC 106
BARNWELL
SC 105
BATESBURG
SC 106
BISHOPVILLE
SC 106
CEDAR
CREEK SC 107
CHERAW
WATER PLANT SC 104
CHESTERFIELD
SC 107
JOHNSTON
SC 113
LITTLE
MOUNTAIN SC 107
LONGTOWN
SC 102
LUGOFF
SC 105
MANNING
SC 100
MCCORMICK
SC 108
NEWBERRY
SC 104
PELION
SC 104
SALUDA
FILTRATION PLANT SC 109
SANDHILL
EXP STATION SC 109
USC,
COLUMBIA SC 113
WIER
TOWER, FORT JACKSON SC 108
...OTHER
STATIONS...
CAROLINA
SANDHILL SC 106
USFS
NEAR JACKSON NUMBER 1 SC 105
JACKSON
SC 105
Why
did the heat wave hit so fast and with such intensity?
 |
| The 500 mb heights for 18z Friday, June 29, 2012. This comes from the GFS Operational model. Note the height centers over the Southwest and the Tennessee River Valley. This helped produce triple digit temperatures from the Southwest to he East coast. Image Credit: WSI. |
A
large high pressure center that had been stationary over the central U.S. split
in two with one center retrograding to the Southwest and the other moving to be
centered over the Southeast. The
southeastern center was over the Tennessee River Valley by Friday
afternoon. As was mentioned in the
previous blog post this is usually an ideal pattern for extreme heat in South
Carolina during the summer. This creates
subsidence of the air mass and downslope slope flows from the Appalachians as
winds aloft are from the northwest.
It
was apparent to any meteorologist on Friday what was going on. I drove to Irmo that morning and other than
the fire in Cayce there was not a cloud in the sky. This made me quite concerned about the day
ahead while most others were focused on the blaze at a recycling plant (with
good reason).
I
knew that the day before the sky was cloudless as a thermal cap had formed from
the subsidence. The noontime temperature
was 90 F with the eventual high reaching 100 F.
The same thing was happening on Friday, but now temperatures at the 850 mb
level were higher (26 – 27C). In the
previous blog post I mentioned that a temperature of 27 C relates to a
potential surface temperature of 110 F.
When the noontime temperature of 100 F occurred on Friday, I knew the
all-time record high temperature for Columbia would be broken. It was just a matter of when and that
occurred at 3 p.m. with a temperature of 108 degrees F.
Friday
night the heat wave was changed by an extraordinary event to our north. A line of thunderstorms formed in Indiana and
raced to the east coast passing through the Washington, DC, area. The line produced considerable damage from
the high winds. The southern end of the
line sent debris clouds south into South Carolina for Saturday morning. My first thought was that the temperature
would have a hard time reaching my forecast of 107 F due to the reduced solar
insolation of the morning. It was hot
enough during the WLTX e-cycle event at the State Fairgrounds (a huge success
in spite of the heat). However, the
skies clear in the early afternoon and the temperature soared to 109 F for the
second day in a row at the Columbia Metropolitan Airport. This tied the all-time record high set the
previous day and was an event that had never happened in the 125 years of
record keeping once a climatological set of temperatures had been
established. In addition, the humidity
was higher and heat indices were in the range of 110 to 115 F.
The
heat wave continued to change into Sunday.
Dew point temperatures soared into the upper 70s and the low in Columbia
was 80 F. By 1 p.m. the temperature at
Hamilton-Owens Field was just 99 F, but with a dew point temperature of 77 F
the heat index was 114 F. The heat was
stiffing and would become excessive in the afternoon.
Again,
the heat wave was unprecedented in the speed in which it arrived and the speed
with which the character changed. It was
also unprecedented in magnitude.
A
meteorologist stated that if it were not for global warming we would not be
seeing this. He is right in that this is
consistent with the projection scientist have made using the computer
models. I presented the findings for our
area again Thursday night in a segment of Climate Matters and will have a post
on extreme heat soon.
