Monday, September 16, 2013

Hot, Mainly Dry Again on Tuesday

By Jay Grymes & Steve Caparotta


As we expected, it was a hot-and-mainly-dry weekend for most of us and the mainly-dry weather -- accompanied by highs in the 90°s -- remains in place into the middle of the week.

Yes, a handful of locations, mostly well south of metro BR, saw a passing shower this afternoon, but they were the lucky ones. 
Tuesday will be another hot day under mostly sunny skies.  The same ridge of high pressure that drove INGRID into Mexico remains parked overhead, putting a substantial lid on the atmosphere.  A pop-up shower or two can’t entirely be ruled out for Tuesday afternoon, but those will be very, very few and far between. We’ll go with isolated afternoon rains, at best, for Wednesday, then increase rain chances to “scattered” for Thursday and Friday.
A cool front is currently draped east-to-west across the mid-Mississippi Valley.  Guidance suggests that the front will try to “backdoor” its way into the viewing area (approach from the northeast) on Wednesday.  However, the boundary is expected to slowly dissipate as at dips south and that means that it will do little to lower our afternoon temps or decrease humidity as it fizzles out.


Daytime heating and continued summer-like humidity will mean scattered afternoon showers and t-storms for Thursday and Friday.
Some much-needed rain appears “likely” for Saturday - - at least for the time being, it looks like another front will make its way through the Bayou State from the northwest on Saturday.  It should reach the WAFB viewing area during the latter half of Saturday then slow to a crawl near the coast on Sunday into Monday.  Clouds and rain should also keep highs in the 80°s for Saturday and Sunday.


In the tropics . . . as you may recall, INGRID became the second hurricane of the season -- and the first in the Gulf -- on Saturday, but was never any threat to the U.S. coast.  INGRID made landfall earlier today along Mexico’s Gulf Coast and has dropped to depression strength this afternoon, but even ‘her’ remnants continue to deliver flooding rains.  In addition, INGRID joins the remnants of the East Pacific’s MANUEL to produce double-trouble flooding for portions of central Mexico.


In the central Atlantic, HUMBERTO lost ‘his’ tropical characteristics on Saturday, but as anticipated by National Hurricane Center forecasters, HUMBERTO made a comeback today, returning to tropical-storm strength as of 10AM. The latest NHC 5-day forecast even calls for HUMBERTO to regain hurricane strength in a few days.  Regardless of what may develop, the system will continue to move towards the north and northeast, posing no threats to land.


Elsewhere, a disturbance over the northwestern Caribbean appears to be headed towards the southwestern Gulf, where conditions are likely to be favorable for some slow development down the road.  For now, the NHC has only a 20% chance for tropical-cyclone formation over the Gulf later in the week, but given its location and the time of year, we’ll keep tabs on it.

No comments:

Post a Comment