Southeast

Weather Underground midday recap for Tuesday, December 02, 2008.

It was a major change on Tuesday across much of the northern Intermoutnains, Northern Rockies and Northern High Plains after experiencing the unseasonable warmth and breaking many high temperature records on Monday. Temperatures dropped from Monday’s 50s and 60s to 20s and 30s on Tuesday as a pool of cold air sagged south from Canada. Highs for Tuesday mostly occurred around midnight in stead of the afternoon hours. Apart from that, a Pacific cold front pushed ashore early Tuesday morning and continued to advance southeastward throughout the day. This system not only kept rain and mountain snow going across the Pacific Northwest, but also dumped significant amount of snow to the northern Intermountains, Northern Rockies and Northern Plains. Total snow accumulations had reached 4 to 8 inches with a foot of snow in higher terrains. In addition, strong winds 25 to 35 mph with local gusts to 45 to 60 mph caused areas of blowing snow and reduced visibilities to nearly zero.

Moving east, the persistent trough of low pressure over the Great Lakes and Northeast continued to produce light lake effect snow over portions of the eastern Great Lakes and northern New England on Tuesday. Meanwhile, a cold front pushed through the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic coast in the morning, which triggered scattered showers and thunderstorms.

On the other hand, much of the Southwest and Southern Great Plains experienced a beautiful autumn day as high pressure built across the region. Plenty of afternoon sunshine helped temperatures climbing into the 60s and 70s.

Temperatures in the Lower 48 states Tuesday have ranged from a morning low of 1 degrees at Eveleth, Minn. to a midday high of 84 degrees at Carlsbad, NM.