Talk about micro-climate weather... small cold spots showing up on IR sat images... and below freezing to boot!
From the following discussion:
161
fxus62 kilm 211748
afdilm
Area forecast discussion
National Weather Service Wilmington NC
148 PM EDT Tuesday Oct 21 2008
And a note on some interesting research in progress: the NC Forest
service operates a weather station (back island raws) in the Holly
shelter game preserve in eastern Pender County. For years our
forecasters have noted how the extremely cold overnight lows
reported by the automated equipment there correlate well with a
'cold spot' on infrared satellite imagery. A portable weather
station operated by the National Weather Service was placed there yesterday and confirmed
last night RAWS observation: the low temperature was 27 degrees.
This cold reading likely results from extreme radiational cooling
which occurs over the Sandy soils on calm clear nights. Other
similar cold spots on infrared satellite imagery show this effect is
not isolated. Further research will hopefully refine our technique
for successfully showing these small mesoscale effects in our
operational forecasts.
