5/16 – Brittany’s “Warm & Sunny” Monday Afternoon Forecast

The main concern in the short term will continue to be the potential for thunderstorms and possible severe weather. We’ll remain in northwesterly upper flow today with most modeling indicating another subtle disturbance moving across the area late this afternoon/early this evening. We’ve had afternoon convection develop the last few days with similar soundings. With the weak shortwave moving through during max heating, would anticipate another day where it takes most of the afternoon for any storms to get going, possibly beyond 4 PM CDT. Hail continues to be a concern this afternoon, and based on what`s happened the last couple days, a Marginal Risk certainly makes sense. Beyond this evening, high-pressure attempts to build into the area for Tuesday and Wednesday. While the airmass remains unstable, any lifting mechanisms will be rather limited.

Overall medium range models continue to be in fairly good agreement and continue to show a hot and dry forecast through the workweek with the next best chance for rain late Saturday and on Sunday.

Heading into the weekend Saturday could still be rather warm as a weak front could try to push into the region but likely stall just north or not get into the area till Saturday night. This could actually lead to some mild compressional heating ahead of it but with the approach of it and a minor disturbance possibly moving through the Lower MS Valley we will probably see an increase in clouds and maybe even some rain later in the day. On Sunday there will be a much better chance of rain as the bulk of the forcing will still be north but whatever is left of the boundary should be over the area and we will likely get rain from it.