A Short Reprieve from the Rains?
The start
of Hurricane Season is just two days away: are you Hurricane Ready? Have you
got your “Game Plan?”
We’ve been
keeping a watch on Barbara, the Eastern Pacific tropical system that was trying
to work its way into the southwestern Gulf (Bay of Campeche). Fortunately,
Barbara couldn’t survive the trip -- although ‘she’ picked the narrow strip of
Mexico’s Isthmus of Tehuantepec, the interaction with the nearby high terrain
and ‘her’ slow movement spelled “Goodbye” to Barbara -- and the National
Hurricane Center has issued its last advisory on the system.
Around the
WAFB viewing area, we did have a few showers and t-storms in the region today,
but coverage was considerably lower than what we saw on Wednesday. And we
expect a repeat of this drier pattern for Friday and probably Saturday as well.
True, the air is moist enough, but the atmosphere is not quite as unstable as it
was at mid-week, so there’s not quite as much opportunity for rising air to
generate rain-making clouds. Still, we do expect a few afternoon showers and
storms for Friday and Saturday -- we’re setting rain chances in the 20% to 30%
range for both days.
A cool
front will be getting better-organized in the Southern Plains by Saturday, with
that front expected to reach northwestern Louisiana by Sunday morning. This
boundary will provide a boost in atmospheric lift -- in other words, it should
help get the rains and t-storms going on Sunday. For now, I’m thinking a 50-50
chance or better for rain in your backyard on Sunday afternoon and
evening.
Our current
guidance says the front slowly clears to the east on Monday, with a drier
Canadian air mass filtering into the lower Mississippi Valley by Tuesday. Now
don’t be thinking “cooler” -- in fact, with the drier air we should see fewer
clouds, which means more solar heating. So look for highs in the low 90°s for
next Tuesday and Wednesday, but we should feel a brief drop in the
humidity.
Down
the road, there is some hinting at another front approaching towards the end of
next week. We'll have to watch and see if that really pans out.
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