10/11 – The Chief’s “Heavy Rainy & Windy” Wednesday Morning Forecast

All eyes continue to focus upstream at the nontropical low pressure system across the western Gulf of Mexico. This feature will begin to strengthen as it approaches our area from the southwest. This will allow pressure gradient to tighten across the waters first later this morning and then breezy to windy conditions develop respectively across the area. The higher winds will be in the advisory area. Otherwise, all headlines remain as is from the previous assessment. As for rain chances, pretty steady for the forecast area wide. Thunder isn’t expected or at least not widespread, but some coastal locations may experience some elevated convection. Otherwise, stratiform isotropic rainfall will be the story there.

With the stronger E or ENE winds offshore, water will begin to quickly pile up, especially with 40-45 kts of wind offshore. The eastern facing coasts will have some coastal flood potential so continued Advisory/Warning products as well. This will be generally during high tide cycles, but the shorter fetch and astronomical tide cycle should be a bit of a limiting factor.

The surface low will quickly begin to move downstream later today as the mean level flow screams to the east/northeast. On the backside of the low, some low level dry air will likely move southward from the mid-south region. Although the surface front will still reside across the Gulf, the lackluster moisture quality will limit rain chances a bit. With the continued active southwesterly flow and again some surface lifting cannot erase ALL mention of rain chances on Thursday or Thursday night.

The long term appears to start off a lot less interesting than the short term. The upper level flow will start to transition to a more zonal/progressive flow, but only briefly as once again the flow will revert back to an active southwesterly flow around the northwest periphery of high pressure system over the southwest Atlantic and Caribbean. Within this flow, there will be a few ripples of mid-level energy that move over the area on Friday.