Parched with No Immediate Relief

June 30, 2006, 6:47 am

Posted by Brian Peters in Weather Discussions
Rating: 0/5 Votes : 0

The Friday morning map discussion video is on the server at:

http://beta.abc3340.com/weather/video.hrb

I knew it has been a while since I've had measurable rain at my house, but I was stunned when I counted the days without rain - 16 consecutive days. The last significant rain at my house in Helena was June 12th - ouch!

Late but as promised I picked a couple of the almost 600 hundred photos I took while in Chicago over last weekend and used them to start the web video map discussion.

Parched - we are parched. And there is no immediate relief in sight. There is, however, some hope for the middle of next week. In the meantime, look for plenty of sunshine as we head into the weekend as temperatures climb each afternoon into the mid 90s.

The trough over the eastern third of the country will dampen today and Saturday as a large upper high develops over the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the Florida peninsula. A large surface high well east of us in the central Atlantic will help to increase moisture over the Southeast US. With increased moisture and plenty of sunshine, we should start to see scattered afternoon showers by Monday. An isolated shower could occur on Sunday, but scattered showers become more likely on Monday and Tuesday.

By Wednesday and Thursday a strong upper level low in Canada begins to carve out another eastern US trough. I'm still somewhat dubious about the trough becoming strong enough to bring a cold front into Alabama, but the GFS is being fairly consistent with doing just that. Curent model timing would suggest that a front may be approaching the area on late Wednesday and actually moving through the state on Thursday. This could bring showers and thunderstorms to Alabama and a pretty good shot at rain for just about everyone. We'll watch this feature to see if the GFS holds on to it. Oh, and if this does happen, look for high temperatures to drop back 4 to 6 degrees.

Tropics are still fairly quiet. That cluster of storms in the southwest Gulf of Mexico is expected to drift northwestward and may bring some rain to the Texas coast. Pressures remain high so there seems little chance for any development. An area of disturbed weather from just east of the Bahamas into the Lesser Antilles is still there but upper level wind is just not favorable for any kind of development.

Hope you have a great Friday. I'll be back with another map discussion video this afternoon around 4 pm or so.

-Brian-

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Posted by
on June 30, 2006, 7:33 am

I have noticed that the experimental TCHP is higher overall in the GOM and NW Caribbean than even last year. 2005 was amazingly warm and for 2006 to have even more available heat content than last year at this time seems to argue for even more potential (all other parameters being equal). I think we may have one of those years that we have rapid development near the coastline; especially with the LOOP current more to the NE than last year (i.e. closer to the coast). It looks as if the loop current has set up due south of Mobile Bay instead of Pascagoula like last year.

2006:
http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/phod/dataphod1/work/HHP/NEW/2006180go.jpg

2005:
http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/phod/dataphod1/work/HHP/NEW/2005180go.jpg

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Posted by
on June 30, 2006, 7:50 am

Your links are bad, Andre. I doubt the higher heat potential would cause more storms, but it could certainly lead to stronger storms....perhaps explosive development as with the biggies last year.

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Posted by www
on June 30, 2006, 8:02 am

Brian,

Is this going to be like the winter storm models? A week away it show rain, then the rain goes away?

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Posted by
on June 30, 2006, 8:15 am

Vic,
Read my post again. I said more potential given all other paramters are equal. That means given the same conditions of last year August 28th in the GOM, with the exception of the warmer water temps katrian would have mor epotential to be stronger.

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Posted by
on June 30, 2006, 8:52 am

Oh, I wasn't questioning your opinion or implying that you were forecasting more storms, just stating what I thought that could mean.

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Posted by
on June 30, 2006, 8:53 am

The links are still not working.

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Posted by
on November 4, 2006, 7:22 pm