6/29 – Rob Knight’s “Wet Pattern Ahead” Afternoon Forecast

At the surface, a nearly stationary frontal boundary remains just to the northwest of our area. To the north of that boundary, high pressure extended from New England to Oklahoma with a drier air mass. Locally, onshore flow will push isolated showers and thunderstorms onshore this morning from the sounds between Slidell and Pascagoula, where they are quickly dissipating. The western Gulf of Mexico disturbance will gradually move onshore along the middle or upper Texas coast over the next 36 to 48 hours, then lift slowly northward. While there doesn’t appear to be large scale forcing mechanisms to focus t-storm development, there’ll be plenty of moisture, instability and differential heating available for t-storms development during the day especially during maximum heating. That’ll be late morning or early afternoon through early evening over land, and late night (nocturnal) over marine areas. This will be the case through Friday.

As we get later into the weekend, high-pressure will try to re-establish itself across the area, but never totally succeeds. Moisture levels are expected to remain near or above 2 inches, and there is likely to be daily development of scattered showers and storms during the diurnally favored development times. The upper ridging might allow for a bit later development, with highs a degree or two warmer as we get into early next week.