11/2 – The Chief’s “Frigid Start To The Day” Thursday Morning Forecast

Today looks a little warmer than yesterday, but only by a few degrees. Aloft, the upper levels will begin to shift to a more zonal pattern through the day and at the surface winds will gradually become more easterly with time. With the slight uptick in pressure, and a low level wind shift taking place, The thinking is that today will start the warming up trend. Humidity values will remain fairly low, especially along and north of the I10/12 corridor this afternoon and again on Friday.

Surface pressure gradient should begin to tighten toward the end of the short term period as a rather broad low pressure across the western Caribbean Sea begins to interact with an area of high pressure. The easterly fetch will likely keep winds offshore a bit elevated and continue to bring slightly higher moisture to at least the southern half of the area.

By Friday evening a weak upper level disturbance is expected to slide eastward across the central Gulf States. This could bring some slight uptick in cloud cover; however, most of the clouds should reside across the Gulf waters during this period. Within the moderate easterly fetch, some slightly better moisture quality and this feature could generate some light shower activity Friday evening.

Surface high pressure across the region will slowly begin to move eastward toward the Florida peninsula by midweek. This should help transition our low level flow to a more return flow with low level moisture increasing by the end of the period, especially locations along and west of the I55 corridor.