Monday 7/30/12 Update

For the first time in months...a new update! The blog has been in semi-retirement for a while, but look for more frequent updates again here.

Like we've seen the past few days, small chances for showers and thunderstorms are in the forecast for this evening and tonight as a disturbance moves down the MS River from the northwest.

Some echos on radar from Farmington to Mt. Vernon may bring some thicker clouds and maybe even sprinkles or light showers to parts of SEMO & S IL this evening....not terribly confident that it will hold together much farther south of the Ohio River.  That said, this disturbance is headed toward some pretty unstable and juicy air across parts NW TN, where the SPC has issued a slight risk of severe storms tonight:

One of the forecast models that has done well in recent days of forecasting short-term storms shows some convection firing up later tonight in the southern parts of the area....here's the 17Z run at midnight tonight:

Given that we've already got a little rain entering the picture late this afternoon, and that similar scenarios the past couple evenings have lead to some scattered showers, I'd say this model is probably onto something.  Any storms that develop, if they can become rooted in that moist/unstable air, could produce wind and hail up to severe limits (58 mph/1"diameter).

Moving on, last week my colleague Jennifer Rukavina got a chance to speak with KY state climatologist, Dr. Stuart Foster about a few topics....and he shared some eye-popping numbers about our ongoing drought.  For the months of April-July, the NWS Paducah has measured 3.46" of rainfall.  That is easily the lowest amount for that period on record....the previous driest for April-July was 4.41" in 1914.  Unreal.

The outlook for the coming days doesn't offer much in the way of change.  Here's a look at the upper-level charts (jet stream) for the next couple of days:

Notice the H with the white lines around it right in the middle of the maps?  That is the center of the ridge that is responsible for the persistent heat.  For the next couple of days, we'll continue to find our region right on the eastern edge of that ridge...close enough to the core of the heat that we'll be plenty hot and humid (upper 90's/heat index 95-105)....but also in a tricky northwest flow pattern, where another one or two minor disturbances could slide down the MS River Valley and keep a small chance of storms in the forecast (20% Tuesday, less than 20% Wed/Thu).

Looking ahead to the end of the week and weekend (surface chart above), it's generally more of the same...hot, humid, and small chances of storms. However, by Sunday and Monday, a cold front looks like it will attempt to nudge into the region....this may bump us up to the 30% shower/storm chance range and knock a couple of degrees off high temperatures....but this front will most likely wash out over our region.  Rainfall totals over the next 5 days continue to be discouraging to say the least:

Finally, we are inching closer to the September peak of the Atlantic hurricane season, and there is a chance of business picking up over the next few days.  A new disturbance way out to the southwest of the Cape Verde Islands is being analyzed for development....the National Hurricane Center is giving it a 20% chance of becoming a tropical storm over the next 48 days.  Here's the latest computer model tracks showing where it could go through Monday:

Have a good one!

TO