Twin States Weather Blog

Quiet Weather Trend:

* The only big weather story this morning is the areas of fog along and south of US 80. The weather pattern looks great as we head into the weekend with mostly sunny to partly cloudy skies and daytime highs in the upper 70s and lower 80s. Overnight lows are going to climb into the 50s as well by the weekend.

* Rain Chances: Not good through the first of next week as a ridge will hold the storm track well to the north of Mississippi and Alabama. As we go into the week, the ridge will shift toward the Atlantic coast and put the area back under a southerly flow. This will allow a few weak shortwaves to sneek in the back door and bring a few showers and a thunderstorm on the first part of the week, but I will admit I'm not that impressed with the models on this trend. At that time we should see dewpoints begin to rise as well. Longer range models seems to hint at a better rain chance late next week for the area.

* Drought: Some of you saw my story (yea I'm back reporting too part time) on the drought update and have emailed me about where to get the data. The link for the US Drought Monitor is: http://drought.unl.edu/dm/monitor.html

I will say this rain deficit is hurting everyone. Its stricks me odd that for the last two years at my old job doing weekend weather and reporting in San Angelo, Texas I was reporting on the same thing... drought. The only difference is there a rain deficit of 4 or 5 inches is a drought for them... where as for us its not unusual to be that below as something usually comes along and helps us make up that deficit. Being that we are well over 14 inches below... I am worried about what the summer is going to be like around here. I surely hope that 107 degree day I experienced out there doesn't come to Meridian for a visit. ( I remember that quiet well... it was the middle of September and on a Sunday. The dewpoint that day varied from negative 2 to positive 5... and talk about no humidity!)

* Early May outlooks from NOAA suggest "normal" precipitation for May... although I don't think "normal" works when we are this low. Temperatures are suggested to be above normal which is pretty much the trend we have been seeing since early March. I am not going to open pandora's box and blame it on "you know what" because long term data shows years here in the Twin States it has been worse than this.

* Have yourself a great Thursday. See you on Good Morning Meridian and on the news tonight when I am reporting on something! Don't forget to wake up and tune in 30 minutes earlier Monday as we start our new Good Morning Meridian: Early Edition... so GMM is now going to be 90 minutes long from 5:30 - 7:00.

Labels: Forecast Discussion

posted by Chris Whited @ 3:50 AM