Rain moves in with stronger storms on the horizon

Good Friday morning!

We've warmed a GREAT deal since Tuesday. We topped out in the mid 60s yesterday, after struggling to get out of the 30s Tuesday. Quite the warm up! Get used to it, though, as we'll see even warmer temperatures this weekend.

Today: 
A mostly sunny sky will greet us in the morning with lows in the mid 30s. The sun will do its job and warm us into the mid to upper 60s this afternoon. Clouds will then flow into the Valley but no rain yet. Enjoy the warmer temperatures and pleasant conditions as we transition to a rainy, humid period tomorrow.

Weekend: 
A warm front will lift north tomorrow morning. Warmth and humid conditions will stream up from the Gulf of Mexico, creating a mild weekend. The chance for rain will increase tomorrow afternoon and be with us through Wednesday. We aren't anticipating much rain with the HPC giving us between a 1/4 to 3/4 over the next three days:

Highs each day will top out near 70. Luckily, there isn't enough instability to forecast thunderstorms, just a few scattered showers. This pattern holds through Monday before we begin tracking a more potent system Tuesday.


Tuesday/Wednesday:
As mentioned above, a strong system is forecast to move through the Deep South late Tuesday/early Wednesday. The timing will need to be worked out over the weekend, but we're likely to see some strong thunderstorms. Here's why:

00Z GFS for Tuesday afternoon:

00Z Euro:

Both models are depicting a strengthening closed low rolling through the South. As it strengthens, it will increase the lift out ahead of it. You can see this best with Euro, where there's good divergence, spreading of the white lines. That's right over us as a the jet streak, area of high winds above the surface. The GFS has a pretty decent sounding for sheared storms with backing, winds going from SE at the surface to SW at 500 mb:

This shows there will be a great deal of shear, winds changing with height located on the right hand side of the image. It is one component we look for when forecasting stronger thunderstorms. The one thing this system doesn't have is CAPE (Convective Available Potential Energy). CAPE is when the temperature profile, red line, is to the left of the environmental profile which goes from the LCL, Lifted Condensation Level, to LOC, Limit of Convection. In the sounding above, that's not the case at all. However, in winter, the Deep South sees quite a few of these low CAPE/high shear systems and can produce tornadoes, December 22, 2011 is the most recent example of this. This set-up isn't looking as strong as that day but it is 5 days out and a lot of things can change! We're calling for strong storms right now, but the timing and strength will be figured out over the weekend.

Remember to go to our First Alert 7-Day Planner to plan for next week!

Coldest day in 11 months

Good Tuesday morning! I hope everyone had a great New Year!

Today will be the coldest day of this cold snap. We'll be back above average by Friday so the roller coaster of temperatures continues.

Today:
Strong winds knocked out power to some last night. They have slackened big time in the overnight hours and we aren't seeing any of those 30mph+ gusts. That's the good news. The bad news; it's going to be downright cold for us this afternoon. Highs will struggle to reach the low 40s with our neighbors to the north not making it out of the 30s. The high pressure responsible for this cold weather will slide southeast this afternoon; settling over us tomorrow morning. This paves the way for tomorrow morning to be colder than this morning.

Rest of Week: 
Wednesday afternoon will begin the warming trend as we see a southwest wind at the surface. Temperatures go from the low 50s to the mid 60s by Friday. A few high clouds are possible Thursday afternoon in response to a weak impulse of energy in the mid-levels of the atmosphere. A fairly vanilla forecast.

Weekend:
A few weak impulses of energy will be able to tap into some Gulf moisture. A dying shortwave will be responsible for the first wave of light rain, maybe drizzle, late late Friday night and Saturday morning. A secondary, slightly stronger wave will move in Saturday afternoon providing a bit of extra lift to wring out a few more showers. Rainfall totals look to be in the half inch to inch category, but it's too early to be specific about totals.

Remember to check out the 7-day planner for a glance at your weekend!


Next Week:
I want to draw our attention to next Tuesday. The models are miles apart in regards to their solution:

00Z GFS for 6Z Tuesday, Jan 10:

00Z Euro for 6Z Tuesday, Jan 10:

The GFS is very progressive, fast, with its solution. It takes the shortwave from Canada and dives it off the southeast coast where it closes the low off. This solution gives a few flurries for the immediate coast of the Carolinas. I'm not so sure I buy this 100% as the Euro is completely different. The Euro already has the low closed off in Texas and crawls it along the northern Gulf Coast throughout next week. It keeps us warmer than the GFS next Monday. It would give us more rain too. Overall, the two models are hinting at the same thing, just different positions. The exact location of the low closing off will have a big impact on our weather next week. I'm leaning toward the GFS more in my forecast since the PNA is forecast to go positive for a brief time. That allows the ridge out west to build and cause the shortwave to trek farther east. The Euro also has the ridge fairly strong out west which is why I think later solutions will trend east.

The reason the position of the closed low is important is because crazy things happen underneath them. Some of those crazy things include snow on the northwest side, if there is enough moisture to work with that is. I'm not saying that will happen in this case, but crazier things have happened!