4/19 – The Chief’s “Sunny & Warm” Wednesday Morning Forecast

There is upper troughing over the northwest and northeast corners of the country with high pressure over the northern Mississippi River Valley. The shortwave that moved across the local area yesterday is now over the eastern Gulf of Mexico. At the surface, high pressure was centered over southern Georgia. Low pressure was centered over southern Nebraska, with a dry line into west Texas. Still some mid and high level clouds over western portions of the area, but these should slide eastward over the next 3-6 hours.

As the high pressure slides eastward to the Atlantic coast over the next 36 hours, surface high pressure will begin to increase moisture across the local area, but that’s not likely to have much of an effect until perhaps Thursday evening.

Unfortunately, the details of the forecast scenario for Friday aren’t any more clear cut than they were 24 hours ago. Main upper disturbance will still be over the Plains states Friday morning. A shortwave in the southwesterly flow ahead of the trough will have the potential to trigger a thunderstorm complex somewhere near the lower Atchafalaya Basin Friday morning. Multiple model solutions, but not all of them, drive this complex southeastward into the northern Gulf. The remaining solutions tend to drive the showers and storms eastward, with the potential for heavy rainfall along the Interstate 10-12 corridors. The main impacts would be Friday afternoon/evening, with frontal passage overnight Friday night ushering in a drier airmass for the weekend, which will be most noticeable with the cooler overnight low temperatures.