The images here represent the weather conditions at LSC as of 11:53 AM Tuesday 22 May, 2007. They were retrieved from the course weatherpage under the 'Current Conditions' section. You may click on the images below for larger versions of these images.

The image at left was retrieved from the 'Summary' link, and indicates that the maximum and minimum temperature normals are 68 and 39 F, respectively. The record high and low temperatures are 88 and 24 F respectively. Record temperatures give some perspective on how extreme temperatures can get at a given time of the year. You may have noticed that both Monday and Tuesday seemed cooler than the normal. The webcam also shows that it was cloudless outside.

The data to the left were downloaded from the 'Details' link. The temperature at 11:53 AM was 61.3 F. At this time, the day's maximum and minimum temperatures were 61.3 F (at 11:45 AM) and 30.9 F (at 5:20 AM), respectively. This means that it is still getting warmer outside at this time; also, it went below freezing (32 F) overnite, giving as a late spring frost. This low is well below the normal overnight minimum temperature, indicating that we are in a cold air mass. Still, it is nowhere near the record cold temperatures of 24 F set for this day.

The previous day's high temperature was 58.0 F at 4:10 PM and the low temperature early Monday morning (just after midnight) was 39.1 F. While the minimum temperature was average for this time of year, the afternoon maximum temperature was much cooler than normal. It was a cold day on Sunday. It was windy too. The highest wind reached 14 knots which is close to 25 mph. This made it seem even cooler.




To understand why it was so cold Monday and Tuesday through despite the bright sunshine, you need to remember what the flow is like around high and low pressure systems. The image at left illustrates this circulation. In particular, notice that the winds east of a High pressure system generally come from the North. This usually brings in cold air into a region.

Going back to the course weatherpage, you can click a current surface pressure map at the link called HPC(archive). The surface pressure map for Monday evening at 8 PM is shown at left (click on the image to enlarge). Vermont is filled in green at the top right of the page. To the west of Vermont lie two High pressure centers. Because the flow around high pressure is clockwise, we expect the winds to be from the north (i.e. northerly) over all of New England. You will notice that the wind barbs do indeed indicate northerly winds east of the high pressure system, with the wind bringing in cold polar air from the north. Hence from the map we would expect cooler temperatures and clear skies as the high moves in from the west.