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!