7/25 – Rob Martin’s “August Around The Corner” Monday Night Forecast

After some morning downpours it’ll be a quiet Monday Night. Our Bermuda High Pressure zone will dominate the forecast through the week as it oscillates slightly over the gulf. That “domination” doesn’t necessarily mean dry weather, as is the case most of the time in summer. It will fluctuate a bit in position and intensity. This will make the daily t-storm positioning/timing an uncertain affair. Sustained southeasterly flow will keep moisture high with widely-varying amounts of cloud cover, so high temps will range from the upper 80s to mid 90s.

The high pressure is providing some subsidence along with warmer mid-level temperatures, none of these are overwhelming and strong enough to completely shut down convection. Unlike the last few days there isn’t as apparent easterly disturbance moving across the Gulf and the ridge appears to have built a little farther south than was anticipated. This should have greater impact on the area mainly southwest MS and the adjacent LA parishes but to the south the sea-breeze should easily be the initial catalyst to get t-storms going with outflow boundaries mostly taking over afterwards.

The rest of the workweek seems to fall under a similar pattern. Wednesday is a difficult forecast. Our high pressure will once again split with one center over the southeast Atlantic coast and the western ridge over the Panhandles of TX and OK. This is actually going to put our region in that break providing a weakness and could help rain chances. All three days the impacts from storms look similar. Moisture loaded profile and light steering winds will once again provide the potential for a few locations to get locally heavy rain, most likely where storms can initiate and before they become outflow dominated.

A mid-level disturbance will move across the eastern U.S Thursday and Friday. This brings a greater increase in rain chances that day and Friday, with an increase in cloud cover across the area. A continuous southerly to southeasterly flow brings plenty of moisture into the area. Knowing all this we will need to keep an eye on the risk for heavy rainfall heading into mid to late week. The main disturbance will lift off to the northeast through Saturday, hopefully lowering rain chances for the weekend.