Rainy and Stormy Weekend Ahead, Not Quite as Warm Next Week?

Overnight infrared satellite imagery shows our area under a weakening area of high pressure located between the upper-level low to the west and a tropical disturbance that is skirting the northeastern Gulf Coast. This is going to mean that clouds will gradually increase as we head through Friday, although it will still be partly cloudy. This also means that deeper moisture is moving back into the area, leading to the chance of at least a few isolated afternoon showers and thunderstorms. Most locations across the area will still be dry for Friday, and I don't see much in the way of impact to any high school football games across the area during the evening, but I think we will have a slightly higher chance of a spotty storm or two being on the radar in the area compared to the last couple of days.

Deeper tropical moisture will really get pulled into the area over the weekend. Precipitable water values will be over 2 inches across the area. This is indicative of a tropical, water-loaded atmosphere. As the weakening front approaches from the northwest, the lift associated with it acting on that environment will kick off widespread showers and thunderstorms across the area on Saturday and even more so on Sunday. Neither day will be a complete washout for everybody, but the chance of you seeing rain both days is pretty high, and some of the rainfall could be locally heavy. We can't rule out gusty winds with a storm or two, but we see no signs of any organized severe weather across the area.

As we head out of the weekend and into early next week, a weakness in the subtropical ridge will be left across the area in the wake of the departing upper low from the west as it ejects into the Great Lakes and gets absorbed into the jet stream. This, in combination with a tropical wave currently over the Bahamas moving into the Gulf over the next few days, will keep our area in disturbed weather through much of next week. Elevated chances of scattered storms will be with us each day, although they may be a bit more numerous again on Wednesday. Because of the weakness in the ridging and the added cloudiness and rain across the area, afternoon highs won't be quite as warm as this week. We're expecting highs to generally be in the low to mid 80s next week, and we can't completely rule out a few upper 70s here and there if rain on a particular day ends up more widespread.

The tropics continue to be active across the Atlantic basin. In addition to Paulette and Rene, we have a vigorous disturbance that has rolled off the coast of Africa and has a very high chance of becoming a named tropical system soon. In addition to that, the wave we talked about currently over the Bahamas will move into the Gulf over the weekend and has at least some potential to develop into a tropical depression or maybe even a lower-end tropical storm. If that happens, it would mainly be a rainmaker for coastal areas, and then help keep our rain chances elevated going into next week. We will be keeping a vigilant eye on all these disturbances over the coming days. The low-latitude nature of the wave rolling off Africa is usually concerning this time of year. Those are often able to have a higher chance of tracking west toward the Caribbean, which then opens up the door to POTENTIAL Gulf troubles down the line, but that is more than a week away. WAY too much uncertainty to get worried about it as of now, but we will be watching closely!