5/18 – Night Rob’s “Over The Hump Yet?” Wednesday Evening Forecast

The weather pattern will hold through the short-term period with a broad area of high pressure off the Southeast U.S. coast extending westward along the northern Gulf Coast. The northwestern periphery of the ridge will start to break down by Friday, especially in the mid and upper levels. However, some drier air over the western Gulf of Mexico will get pushed around the periphery of the low-level ridge toward our area today. This slight decrease in moisture along with a slight strengthening of the sinking air should be enough to inhibit deeper updrafts from developing, thus capping any thunderstorm development. While a pop up shower (or weak storm) cannot be ruled out each afternoon, the forecast is dry with coverage less than 5 percent Wednesday-Friday, with the “best” chance on Friday. Highs each day range from the upper 80s along the coast to lower 90s inland. Overnight temps will remain elevated in the mid 70s, a good 8-10 degrees warmer than average for the season.

A wet weather pattern looks to return to the region this weekend into early next week. A disturbance that is currently moving onshore in Southern California is forecast to drift away from the stronger westerly steering flow over the country and then drift southeastward across northern Mexico over the next few days. A mid-latitude disturbance will amplify over the Rockies and eventually push this drifting low eastward (toward us) by Friday. The disturbance will bring increasing chances for showers and storms starting Saturday. It will then track slowly eastward along the Central Gulf Coast this weekend. This system looks to connect with deeper moisture from the western Caribbean by the time it reaches our area. This could set to the stage for locally heavy rainfall, especially on Sunday with precip chances near 60-80%. It will also bring our weekend temperatures down a bit, but it’ll still be warm and humid.