Getting Drier -- and hotter -- this week!
Jay Grymes / WAFB Storm Team
Titan9 Doppler was showing a few
showers on Monday afternoon with a couple of stronger t-storms to the south and
east of Baton Rouge, with most of the action loosely linked to the afternoon
“sea breeze.” We expect all of that action to die-down as we head into the
evening and go to mainly fair skies overnight.
Tuesday will begin with a few clouds
and sunrise temps in the low 70°s for metro BR. We’ll go to partly cloudy skies
for the afternoon, with rain chances on Tuesday at less than 20%.
It looks like the main weather story
for Tuesday and the rest of the work week will be about the heat. Our forecast
is calling for highs in the low to mid 90°s across metro Baton Rouge for
Tuesday, with highs on most days this week up around the mid 90°s. Factor in
the humidity and we’re talking about peak afternoon Heat Index numbers climbing
into the triple-digits just about every day this week.
At the same time, we’re calling for a
run of “mainly dry” days, with rain chances for most WAFB neighborhoods running
at under 20% each day right into the weekend.
Why the “hot-and-dry” spell? As you
know, in the summertime, the two go hand-in-hand. Reduced cloud cover means
less chance for rain and more direct solar heating.
Our forecast for the next couple of
days calls for upper-level ridging (high pressure in the mid to upper levels of
the atmosphere) to take charge and persist right into the weekend. Ridging
suppresses cloud development and actually causes the upper-levels to sink
towards the surface -- literally pushing downward from above. This downward
motion effectively puts a cap on the lower levels of the atmosphere, minimizing
the ability to hot, humid air to rise (and to develop into clouds).
The cap isn’t always perfect, so some
rising still can occur, allowing for occasional, spotty showers. But the
upper-level ridging and resulting cap means little or no chance for rains like
we saw over the weekend -- at least not for the next several days, and probably
not through the weekend.
So get ready for some serious summer
season heat all week long.
So far so good in the tropics -- all
remains “quiet” there.
No comments:
Post a Comment