Badly needed rain on the way

The long-awaited shift in the weather pattern is underway as what has been for MOST of us a 3-week long dry spell ends and the chance of rain and scattered thunderstorms will be on the increase along with the humidity Today through next Wednesday and the temperatures will trend down with the increase in cloud cover.

The map above shows estimated 5-day rainfall totals.

I haven’t been able to say below-normal temperatures in a couple months but that’s whats coming tomorrow through much of next week!

AS of now not expecting much in the way of severe weather but stay tuned in case that changes in the days ahead.

Despite my having explained this a thousand times people still don’t seem to understand the chance of rain. You can have the chance of rain be 100% likely, but 90% of the day could be dry. It doesn’t have to mean a rainy day or wash-out.

It CAN mean that IF thats what the forecaster tells you, the devil is in the details so you have to listen to my explanation on the radio, on twitter, and here in the blog or in the forecast detail box at wsbradio.com by clicking on the forecast link.

You can google POP (probability of precipitation) and read all about it to learn more.

So far I do not see any total wash-out days, however Friday-Sunday could come close.

In the past I’ve observed the models often mistake tropical moisture for all rain when much of it just goes into cloud production, also heavy rain occurring near the Gulf Coast can often siphon off rain that would otherwise occur further North. I’ll be better able to fine-tune these details in the days ahead so check back.

What’s causing the new weather pattern?

The entrainment of an influx of moisture will be driven into the Southern Plains and Dixie to the East Coast over the next 7 days as an upper level cut-off low pressure system (blue ball in maps below) ejects out from the Desert Southwest into the Southeast between now and next Wednesday. Some of this moisture can be attributed to the tropical system from the Gulf of Mexico near Texas:

The upper level “cut-off” low pressure system in the jet stream weakens as it moves through our region but it will still be juicy as it pulls in deeper gulf moisture and squeezes it out.