Wednesday 6/29 Update

As expected, a drier air mass finally arrived in our region late yesterday, with dew points this morning ranging from the upper 50's to mid 60's....compared to the oppressive low and mid 70 dew points yesterday morning.  This drier air arrived behind a cold front that has pushed well south of the area, leaving surface high pressure to remain in control of our weather for a few days.  Today, we'll enjoy lots of sunshine....very warm, but less humid, with highs in the upper 80's.  Tonight, another comfortable one, with lows in the lower 60's again.  Here's how things are forecast to look Thursday at 7AM:

 

High pressure over Ohio, and a building upper-level ridge will keep skies mainly sunny for the next several days.  And after a short break from at least the high humidity today, the warm front you see on the map above over eastern KS & OK will bring the return of some serious heat and humidity starting Friday.  Here's a map showing temperatures at the 850 mb level (about 1500 ft high) from today through Friday morning:

As you can probably figure out, those brighter shades of red that spread in from the west by Friday morning indicates building heat as the surface warm front slides through, and as the upper-level ridge strengthens.  Temperatures heading into the weekend will head to the mid 90's Friday-Sunday, with increasing humidity.  Overnight lows will be back closer to 70.  

One change from yesterday's forecast...yesterday's forecast models indicated the upper-ridge breaking down slightly by Sunday/Monday, which would allow a weak cold front to slide farther south and possibly lead to scattered t'storm chances as early as Saturday.  It now looks like the ridge will hold firm until the beginning of next week...which should keep most of the area steamy but mainly dry over the weekend.  However, any time you have heat and humidity, something could bubble up...so we will leave a very small chance of an isolated t'storm in the Sunday/Monday forecast. 

A couple of other points of interest real quick...after a record-breaking amount of rain this spring, the month of June has continued to see rainfall records fall by the wayside.  Jennifer Rukavina posted a blog yesterday with some interesting information about recent heavy rainfall....you can read that here.

Finally, we have our first named tropical storm of the year in the Atlantic.  "Arlene" officially became a tropical storm last night, and could strengthen to near hurricane status before making landfall along the east central coast of Mexico tonight or early tomorrow.  As with many of these tropical systems that move onshore and stall, the biggest issue with this storm will be heavy rainfall (4-8", locally up to 15"), which could lead to deadly mudslides.  For more info on Arlene, click on the Tropical Weather link on the right side of the page...here's the 10AM advisory on Tropical Storm Arlene:

A quick final note...I am off tomorrow, and will be on reporter duty on Friday, so I may not be able to post another update until Saturday.

Tuesday 6/28 Update

Going to have to keep today's update brief, as we currently have some severe weather ongoing in the MO Bootheel and west TN.  Speaking of that severe weather, a rare High Wind Warning was issued by NWS Memphis for a large portion of NE Arkansas and the Bootheel this morning...where forecasters expected 60-70 mph wind gusts to continue to be possible well after the passage of the line of storms.  This may seem backwards to you, sense 99% of the time we always talk about damaging winds occurring with the "gust front" on the leading edge of a squall line.  This is an example of a somewhat rare occurrence know in meteorology as a "wake low".  Here is a helpful diagram of what happens with a wake low:

 

 Pretty interesting.  Without getting too complicated, a wake low is basically a small scale area of low pressure that forms at or near the surface just behind a passing line of storms.  Part of what fuels and drives these lines of thunderstorms are strong winds in the mid-levels of the atmosphere pushing into the back of these storms...called a rear-inflow jet.  Because winds flow from high to low pressure, this wake low draws the strong rear-inflow winds down to the surface...sometimes leading to winds gusts that are as strong or stronger than those associated with the thunderstorm.  Thankfully, this didn't pan out to be a huge deal today for our area.

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Moving on...it looks like we'll have to deal with considerable cloud cover for a portion of the afternoon, thanks to this complex of thunderstorms that rolled through the Bootheel & west TN.  This may serve to keep temperatures in the lower 80's for many of us.  

One thing you certainly noticed if you were outside this morning was the unbelievable humidity.  At 6AM, our air temperature was 75, and the dewpoint was 74.  That's about as humid as it can get.  Thankfully, the cold front will continue to move south of the area later today, allow that drier air to slowly move in from the north later this evening.  Latest forecast numbers show dewpoints falling into the lower 60's by Wed. morning, which means a much different feel for tomorrow.  We'll finally be able to forget about thunderstorm chances for a change from Wed. through Friday.  

Big story for the upcoming holiday weekend will continue to be the heat.  Looks like humidity levels will creep back up by Friday, with highs in the mid and maybe upper 90's Friday & Saturday. A cold front still looks like it may get close enough by Saturday to help shave off a couple degrees...and be enough of a trigger that we'll have to put a small chance of isolated storms back in the forecast from Sat. through Monday the 4th.

6/27 Update--Severe Weather Possible

The Storm Prediction Center is likely going to issue a Severe Thunderstorm Watch for western KY & TN shortly.  An intense line of storms is currently entering the Purchase Area of KY, and could producing damaging winds, in addition to torrential rainfall and dangerous lightning.  Here is the area of concern:

Welcome! & Monday 6/17 Update

Welcome to my new blog!  I'm looking forward to using this platform to give weather updates, in addition to what you'll see on air on Local 6.  This will allow be to able to go a little more in-depth than what I can share during a 3-minute weathercast, as well as provide a place for you to check out some of my favorite weather links.  I'll link these blogs to my Facebook fan page, or you can subscribe to receive new blogs by email.