Friday, November 15, 2013

Even Warmer This Weekend

By Jay Grymes & Steve Caparotta
As expected, we had passing mainly-light showers over the viewing area earlier in the day, but the day’s bigger weather story was about the temperatures: morning lows in the 50°s and highs in the 70°s -- quite a change from the previous couple of days.  The warm-up continues into the weekend -- heaters off, and for many it will be back to the a/c.  We’ve got morning lows for both Saturday and Sunday in the 60°s for the Red Stick region, with highs in the upper 70°s to low 80°s.
We’ve backed-down the rain chances for Saturday and are now going with only spotty (less than 20%) mainly-afternoon showers.  With tailgating highs in the mid and upper 70°s “on the bluff” plus game-time temps hovering around the 70° mark for all four quarters, that should make the Jaguar Nation very happy.
So what about Sunday?
Most of our guidance yesterday had Sunday set-up for “rain likely,” but the latest round of model outputs have muddied the forecast waters a bit.  All three of our popular go-to models -- our in-house PrecisionCast, the American GFS and the European ECMWF -- are “drier” for Sunday-into-Monday compared to yesterday.  In addition, they also seem to be suggesting a slower progression and passage of the front, with rains lingering later into Monday morning.  With the new guidance in mind, we’ll go with scattered rains on Sunday afternoon and evening, with rain likely during the overnight hours into the first half of Monday.
The NWS Weather Prediction Center has also eased back on their regional rain totals for the frontal event, now calling for something more along the lines of 0.25” to 0.75” through Monday.  Severe weather does not appear to be any threat either.
Once the front clears the region during the latter half of the day on Monday, we can expect a noticeable cool-down, but not another polar blast like earlier this week.  We’ll stay dry through the mid-week with no freezes -- in fact, most of us will see lows only fall into the 40°s for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday mornings.   Highs on those same three days will be in the mid to upper 60°s.
Well out into the end of next week, early indications from the GFS and ECWMF have the next front arriving in the lower Mississippi Valley around Saturday or so.  Now we all know that a forecast for next weekend is really too far down the road to declare confidently, but it is something to watch in the coming days and early next week.
Still quiet as we head towards the official end of the Atlantic Hurricane Season!

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