1/23 – The Chief’s “Wet & Very Warm Pattern Ahead” Tuesday Afternoon Forecast
This afternoon will be rather quiet with cloud coverage and isolated rain later today and that along with some daytime warming should get scattered showers to develop but this rain will be light to maybe moderate at times. We will remain under a canopy of clouds and this will keep temperatures in check a little so one more day of highs in the 60s to near 70 but that will not be the case the rest of the week.
Tonight through Thursday will bring a fairly active weather pattern. Currently WPC has a Slight Risk for excessive rainfall NW of our area. These initial storms will be elevated so the concern for strong/severe storms is not anticipated overnight and early Wednesday but that risk will increase shortly after sunrise as we continue to see increasing moisture flow. Increasing lift overnight but more so as the day starts Wednesday will lead to convection becoming more numerous to widespread especially across the northwestern half of the area. However the front will still be west and with southwest flow aloft the main concern for heavy rain will probably still be west of the area to start the day. This is a recipe for heavy rain if we get another disturbance to work through the southwest flow and the deep moisture doesn’t get shunted to the east. However, prior to that there will be a window from mid-late Wednesday morning into Thursday morning where locally heavy rain from training of storms along with rather efficient storms will be likely over the area.
As for the flash flood potential, the Storm prediction Center has the entire area outlooked Wednesday and Wednesday night in the anticipation the slowly moving line (possibly eventually stalling). As for the strong/severe aspect. There is a nonzero chance of seeing a few motivated storms. Initially overnight tonight and early tomorrow storms should be elevated so not anticipating any issues outside of locally heavy rain with those but as we start to warm up Wednesday. We will have instability to work with but the really strong forcing should remain well to the west.
