First Alert Weather In-Depth: A drop in the temperature

ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Considering it is February, we just had a significant period of very warm weather for Western New York.

We had a record high temperature Tuesday (73 degrees) and we reached the record again Wednesday (66 degrees). As they say, records are made to be broken. But, let’s focus on the rate change or the speed with which the temperature been “adjusted” Wednesday. By now you know we went from one season to another season in a very short amount of time. 

A closer inspection shows that the temperature Wednesday was on a similar rate of increase compared to Tuesday. However, by 1 p.m. that increasing temperature came to a screeching halt. Why? It was the passage of a very well-defined, sharp boundary or a cold front that moved across Western New York.  We anticipate that the mercury Wednesday will have fallen from 66 degrees (at 1 p.m.) all the way down to 29 degrees by about 8 p.m. That is a drop of some 37 degrees in seven hours. If you look through the records, you will be hard pressed to find a greater decrease over time.

However, in 1992 the Rochester Airport went from 62 degrees down to 10 degrees, but that happened over a time period of 14 hours. A more extreme example was the thriving metropolis of Spearfish, South Dakota. Back in 1943 they went from 61 degrees down to 18 degrees.

That may not sound sound all that extreme, but drop of 58 degrees happened in just 27 minutes!