The Final Countdown!

Summer is on its last legs, but it it holding strong for one final day. The area of high pressure providing us with the spectacular, albeit warm, weather the past 5 days will finally be nudged out to sea by a cold front. Yes, our second cold front of the season, remember Tropical Storm Lee's attached cold front ;), will arrive tomorrow afternoon. Our in house RPM has a bit of moisture making its way into east central Alabama tomorrow morning. I'm not totally buying that solution, but it's certainly possible. One thing I know for sure; there will be more clouds tomorrow than there will be today! We'll see a few fair weather cumulus clouds this afternoon, but not enough to keep us from reaching the lower 90s again...

Now, we usually talk about showers or thunderstorms in advance of cold fronts, but this one isn't going to have much moisture to work with thanks to the high pressure currently in place. Here's the latest QPF output by the North American models (it should be noted that the scale isn't the same as yesterday's version I showed...):

  

The 00Z GFS yesterday was putting out over .30" of rain locally... The 00Z GFS today has only .13 inches! With each model run, we've gotten drier and drier. That's not good news for the prolonged drought our area is currently experiencing. 

After the front passes, some MUCH cooler air will settle over us. Take a look at what some of the models are putting out this morning: 

Our highs go from the lower 90s today, as forecast, to the upper 70s by the weekend! Also notice, we don't rocket back into the upper 80s next week. This is fantastic news for those weary of the heat and humidity we had to go through this summer. The CAD I talked about yesterday is still being picked up by the models, which is why we are expecting cooler temperatures this weekend. I will tell you that our forecast still hinges on how strong of a CAD signature we see. If the CAD is stronger, we could see highs only in the upper 60s to low 70s; if it's not that strong, we will see highs in the mid to upper 70s, which is what I'm going with at this time.

Tropics:
I want to give you a quick update on the tropics: Tropical Storm Maria is still churning in the Atlantic Ocean, but the forecast track takes it well away from the United States. In fact, Bermuda will be brushed by Maria's tropical storm force winds, but that's the only land area that will be affected.

Looking into the extended period, the 00Z GFS has a storm forming in the western Caribbean Sea:

The subtropical ridge in the Atlantic is then forecast to break down in response to a long-wave trough moving through the Eastern United States. This trough will then drag the tropical system into the Gulf of Mexico and aim it at Florida:

This is a LONG way away in model land and should be taken with a grain of salt. It's just something I'll keep an eye on and will keep you up to date on the model's latest thinking.

Have a great Wednesday!

David Reese