More Rain on Friday

By Jay Grymes & Steve Caparotta

The active afternoon weather should settle down later this evening, but plan on a return of showers and storms for Friday -- we’re setting rain chances at 50% for Friday afternoon.  A cool front is still expected to sag southward into the viewing area tomorrow, then stall and linger over the viewing area through most of Saturday.  Our thinking is that the stormiest period will be prior to the front’s arrival (Friday), and that the weather will be a bit quieter on Saturday.  Our Saturday forecast calls for a sun/cloud mix for much of the day with isolated mainly-afternoon t-showers.

 The front is expected to weaken and begin a retreat northward late Saturday into Sunday.  Although we won’t see any big changes in the afternoon temperatures, we should experience a modest dip in the humidity late Saturday and Sunday -- while highs will reach the low to mid 90°s on Sunday, the drop in humidity levels will be most welcome!

Rain chances will then begin a slow rebound starting Monday and extending into the middle of the work week.

T.S. Ernesto failed to return to hurricane strength, mainly because ‘he’ remained too close to the coast.  Ernesto made ‘his’ final landfall earlier this afternoon, and the 4PM Advisory from the NHC had maximum sustained winds down to 50 mph.  Ernesto will continue to track deeper into Mexico tonight and interaction with Mexico’s mountains should bring a quick end to the storm system.  However, locally heavy rains may continue, prompting flood worries there.

In the central tropical Atlantic, the area we’ve been watching for a few days has been upgraded to Tropical Depression #7 as of 4PM.  Although TD #7 remains a long, long way east of the Lesser Antilles, the current NHC forecast brings the system right into the eastern Caribbean over the weekend.  In addition, the forecast calls for TD #7 to become a tropical storm (T.S. Gordon) within the next 24 hours.

 And in case you haven’t heard, the NHC and NOAA tropical experts have “upped” their storm count forecast for the current tropical season.  In late May, the NOAA folks posted a forecast calling for 9-15 ‘named’ storms with 4-8 becoming hurricanes.  Earlier this morning, NOAA adjusted those numbers to 12-17 ‘named’ storms, with 5-8 becoming hurricanes.