Front knocking on our Door

Good morning! Was it warm enough for you yesterday? We made it to 72 degrees, 13 degrees above average.

I've been talking about a cold front bringing us rain the next few days. Well, the cold front is indeed coming but don't expect much rain. Ahead of the cold front will be some abnormally warm temperatures, so stay cool!

Today:
Abundant sunshine, filtered through high clouds at times, will allow us to reach the low to mid 70s. Our record high is 77. We shouldn't get that warm but it will feel more like Spring than Winter (well almost winter). The cold front is located in Arkansas and western Tennessee, but will take a leisurely stroll through the Deep South.

Friday/Saturday:
As mentioned above, we aren't expecting a ton of rain with this cold front. Here's a look at tomorrow's expected rainfall as forecast by the HPC:

The Bufkit profile, showed in yesterday's blog, shows the same story: DRY! The southeast ridge, a mainstay during La Nina winters, is rearing its ugly head. It is much stronger than previously thought, which means most of the moisture will lift north before it gets here.

Next Week:
After a brief respite from the warm weather this weekend, we'll warm right back into the upper 60s by Tuesday. You know what that means; another cold front will attempt to invade the southeast. I've talked about this system the past few days and I still expect it to give us a decent chance for rain. It's way too early to forecast the amount of rain we'll pick up, but if I had to put a number out there, I'd say around 0.25". That's it. The track of the low will take most of the moisture toward north Georgia/Alabama. The models have slowed this system down and it isn't forecast to enter the southeast until Wednesday, so my Thursday call earlier this week might not be too bad. Here are the two models, GFS and EURO, for next Wednesday:
GFS for Wednesday afternoon:

EURO for Wednesday afternoon:

There are some differences between the models, as expected, but we're still looking at a slower system. The moisture associated with the front will pass through Wednesday afternoon. The GFS is back to it's northerly track, near the Great Lakes, while the Euro has a closed-low moving through the Ohio River Valley. This makes the EURO the wetter solution, but I'm not buying it completely. I'll refine this forecast over the next few days and keep you up to date with my latest thoughts.

Christmas Weekend: 
It's that time of year to start thinking about holiday travel. The GFS has a nice little surface low tracking to our northwest Christmas Eve. This solution could provide us with a wet, not white, Christmas but it's too far out to be specific. I do agree with this set-up as we've been tracking a cold front or low every 4-5 days, so the timing makes sense. I'll watch this over the next few days and make a better forecast with this system sometime over the weekend.

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