Areas of rain, mainly light, crossed the Tri-State early on Wednesday, but that storm system has moved away and we're enjoying a small break in the action with some very mild air across the Ohio Valley. The break in the rain won’t last long as a new area of low pressure (rising air, clouds, precipitation) heads northeast from Texas. Check out the massive area of rain to our south!
Rain showers will develop Thursday afternoon and continue Thursday night into midday Friday before ending. It won’t be a continuous rain, just scattered showers…and maybe an isolated thunderstorm.
Highs will be in the upper 40s to near 50 on Thursday, but warmer air will keep flowing into the area from Thursday night into Friday, so temperatures won’t fall heading into Friday morning, and may even rise a few degrees. With showers ending on Friday we’ll have mixed clouds and sunshine in the afternoon as highs head for the upper 50s to near 60 degrees!
If you’re enjoying the mild weather, you have a few more days before things begin to change, and if you’re a fan of winter we’ll be returning to a wintry pattern next week, but let’s look at the weekend first.
Yet another storm will head our way from late Saturday into early Monday, with more mild air surging north as the storm approaches. Highs may reach the low 60s on Saturday with mixed clouds and sunshine (remember my mention of “Spring Fever” last week?), but widespread rain arrives Saturday night, and Sunday will be wet across the area. There may even be enough rain for minor flooding by Sunday evening as model guidance shows 1” to 2.5” of rainfall this weekend.
The rain should end before daybreak on Monday. Highs will be in the mid 50s on Sunday, falling back to the upper 30s on Monday.
But the wet weather isn’t ending there. Our atmospheric setup favors one to two more rounds of precipitation and yet another storm will get close to our area on Tuesday, with more rain possibly mixed with snow…but there is a lot of uncertainty regarding the storms beyond this weekend with some guidance showing no new precipitation here from Monday afternoon through Thursday, while other models have indicated a significant snow threat. Just look at today as a classic example of model trouble. Two days ago models showed no rainfall in our area and only in the last 24 hours did the models show confidence in calling for the showers we all had earlier.
Because our active storm track is coming from the Pacific Ocean and is tapping into energy over Mexico and the Gulf of Mexico, the models have fewer reliable data points for weather information. Aside from some buoys and a few ship reports, we don’t have surface weather data from the water areas, and surface reports in Mexico are sparse as well. Without land areas (and in most of Mexico) there are no balloon launches for upper-air measurements. Satellites help but they can’t measure the atmosphere as directly as the radiosonde units (radio-transmitted weather data) attached to hydrogen-filled balloons and launched at National Weather Service offices and a few other locations. Therefore, model forecasts for storms coming from the Pacific, Mexico and Gulf of Mexico are not as reliable beyond 3 to 5 days…and that’s why I have doubts about what we can expect starting next Monday.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather_balloon
Until then, enjoy this mild pattern and get ready for more rain. January may follow December’s lead with above normal precipitation, and much like December we may be getting all of our accumulating snowfall in the second half of the month.
Keep your eyes on the sky and enjoy the changing weather!
Rich Apuzzo
Chief Meteorologist
Skyeye Weather LLC
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