BLOG: Rain Ahead

Well today looks to be quite active thanks to a warm front pushing through the area this morning with a trailing cold front to follow this evening. With a good deal of moisture to work with we should see some hefty thunderstorms by the afternoon ahead of the cold front, and while a few strong wind gusts and small hail are not out of the question, the primary impact will be drenching downpours and areas of flash flooding. The risk for heavy rain will come to an end tonight as the cold front sweeps southeastward and a general drying trend develops. That said, a trailing upper-level trough may be enough of a catalyst to take advantage of the leftover moisture and set off a round of (mainly) afternoon showers and thunderstorms, though coverage and intensity should be much less than today.

Temperatures today will be tricky with cloud cover and rainfall a major player... it's not inconceivable that we fail to make it out of the 80s if we see heavy rainfall early on and don't get any significant breaks of sunshine. With this in mind we will bring the temp up to 91 as we do believe we'll see enough sunshine to take advantage of warm mid-level temperatures. Tomorrow is a little less tricky, though cooling mid-level temperatures and some clouds may limit us to the mid/upper 80s as opposed to low 90s... we'll see, but no truly compelling reason to change things at this point with a northwesterly flow developing and a drier atmosphere overall.

Looking to next week we could see a couple of really nice days to end the week when high pressure pushes in behind a cold front set to arrive Wednesday. Preliminary indications are that we will enjoy low humidity, near normal temperatures and ample sunshine... but is it a mirage? I hope not, but instead of tracking storm potential let's track the "nice" potential. Stay tuned!  

Have a great day!