What a cold front looks like …

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Finally a real cold front has brought seriously cooler temps to the region … left is visual band, right is mid-level water vapor. Browns are very dry (click to embiggen):

Satellite imagery showing a large area of the southeastern United States, with distinct land and cloud formations over the Gulf of Mexico.
Satellite image showing a weather map of the southeastern United States with varying shades of orange and yellow, indicating atmospheric conditions.

Temperatures dived yesterday. Here is a plot of the last four days, black is this morning up to 9:10am, red is yesterday (Saturday), orange is Friday, and pink Thursday … note the heat index values in the 90’s Thursday/Friday:

Line graph depicting a three-day temperature comparison over time, showing temperature trends with colored markers and lines for different days.

Here’s the plot for the last week. We actually briefly had wind chills this morning into the upper 40’s in downtown Savannah (35 miles south of Frogmore):

Line graph showing Parkside temperature data from October 13 to October 18, 2026, with air temperature in black, heat index in red, wind chill in blue, and soil temperature in green.

Despite our cool-down, it’s still hurricane season in the Northern Hemisphere. Hurricane Trudy is just off the Pacific coast of Mexico, where hurricane warnings are still in effect as it parallels the coast: Key messages regarding Hurricane Trudy (en Español: Mensajes Claves):

Satellite image showing the Gulf of Mexico and surrounding regions with the path and warnings for Hurricane Trudy, including indication of watch and warning zones.

Out in the West Pacific, Super Typhoon Champi just missed causing major damage to Guam. The unexpectedly rapid intensification started just south of the Island, with sustained winds jumping from 80mph to 150mph as it passed. Champi is now headed towards the coast of China:

Satellite image showing Typhoon Champi in the western Pacific Ocean with projected path markers and major cities including Beijing, Hong Kong, and Manila.

Finally, there is a Yellow Blob of Doom just off the US Atlantic coast:

Satellite image of the Eastern United States and the Caribbean, displaying the NHC Tropical Weather Outlook with probability percentages for tropical development: 30% in yellow off the East Coast and 80% in red near Central America. Date and time: October 18, 2026.

This is really more of a nor’easter than tropical, but NHC has it tagged. This shows the weirdness of our severe storm monitoring and warning system. A nor’easter, even with tropical storm or hurricane force sustained winds, is treated differently than a hurricane. The Weather Prediction Center and local NWS offices handle them rather than the centralized system like NHC does for hurricanes. Here’s WPC’s key messages for the incipient storm …

Weather forecast graphic detailing the expected impact of an October Nor'easter on the Mid-Atlantic coast, including predictions for coastal flooding, beach erosion, strong wind gusts, and potential heavy rain.
https://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/index.shtml#page=ovw

And one of the fancy new animation thingees I’m playing with showing the winds over the next three days…

and rain accumulations …

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