Sunday Evening Forecast Discussion – 8 p.m.

The majority of the forecast has remained mostly unchanged over the next 7 days, with the exception of the late Wednesday into Thursday system. Things still look to be rather cloudy and cool as the area will remain on the east side of a broad upper trough for much of the work week. Currently, rain chances will be the highest Monday night into Tuesday.

Tranquil weather will persist thru tonight, thanks to surface ridging that continues to build eastward into the Deep South. Temps have managed to climb into the mid 40s far north to low 50s south, still rather chilly but quite a bit warmer than yesterday. Surface winds will shift to the east/southeast tonight as the ridge shifts east into Georgia and the Carolinas. Moisture will begin to increase slowly ahead of the next system, so look for low temps back in the upper 20s and low 30s with a cirrus shield spreading from west to east.

The upper level ridge will weaken on Monday as a large trough begins to settle in across the central US. This trough will be reinforced by several shortwaves and will remain nearly stationary thru mid week. The first of several shortwaves that will round the base of the upper trough will bring widespread rain to Central Alabama Monday night and Tuesday. This impulse will pick up a surface low over far east Texas and pull it east-northeast across the state on Tuesday. The low will be too far south for any instabilities, but there doesn`t appear to be any cold air for wintry precip, so still expect all rain. We could see some decent rainfall totals with this particular system, perhaps upwards of 1.5 inches. Models show precipitable water values increasing to near 1.5 inches on Tuesday, which is above normal for this time of year. Models have been fairly consistent in pushing the frontal boundary associated with this system into the southern portions the state. The latest guidance takes the front completely thru our area by Tuesday evening, with practically no rain for us on Wednesday. We may still have a shot at seeing some precip on Thursday in the southeast. Low stratus and rain will keep temps rather mild Monday night, with lows in the 40s to around 50 degrees. Highs on Tuesday will range from the low 50s north to mid 60s south. Temps will be a bit cooler on Wednesday due to continued cloud cover.

This time yesterday models were bringing us another good round of rain Wednesday night into Thursday, but things have since changed. The surface low that was previously projected to develop in the north central Gulf and then track across northern Florida is now depicted farther south. This in turn would keep much of our forecast area cloudy but dry.

The southern end of the main upper trough breaks off into a closed low over New Mexico/Texas Friday, with the northern portion pushing eastward off the Atlantic coast. Therefore dry conditions look to prevail in the extended with temps warming back to near normal.

Daniel Sparkman
dsparkman@wvuatv.com
WVUA Weather