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.