April 5, 2024 archive

Friday Afternoon Rambles: Close Eyes On Monday’s Cloud Cover And Gearing Up For Another Active Week Of Hefty Rain/ Storms…

The upcoming “immediate term” forecast package has a little something for everyone: Good, Bad, and UGLY.

Let’s start with the “good” first, we should finally see drier air win out and get us back into the sunshine department Saturday. The trade off? Unseasonably cold conditions taking hold under those clearing skies tonight and diminishing wind. Most areas should wake up to the upper 20s come Saturday morning, but under that strong April sun angle, temperatures will zoom into the middle 50s by afternoon. Enjoy the badly needed vitamin D as it won’t stick around terribly long.

Our next storm system will deliver a round of gusty storms in here by Sunday afternoon and evening. Sunshine to start the day will give way to increasing clouds and scattered to numerous storms later in the day. We’re monitoring for the potential of a few strong-to-severe storms during this time period.

Storms return for the 2nd half of our weekend.

We still have our fingers crossed for a brightening sky to take hold Monday, but this isn’t a slam dunk by any means. – More of a now cast type situation if you ask us as the region will be in between systems. We’ll continue to hope for the best.

Regardless, active weather quickly returns midweek as a surface low rides northeast into the Ohio Valley. This will mean widespread rain and embedded thunder will return, and heavy rain is becoming increasingly likely.

Heaviest rain likely arrives later Wednesday into Thursday followed by a gusty and briefly colder close to next week. By this point, early indications are that the region can expect another significant rain event, including widespread 2″+ totals (we’ll hone in on those amounts as we get closer).

There’s ensemble support to back up the heavy rain idea.

Additional details to come throughout the weekend (and beyond) around these items and more.

Happy Friday, friends!

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Long Range Report: Pattern Evolution Into Late April; Early May…

Updated 04.05.24 @ 7:16a

The overall chilly and unsettled pattern of late should show rather marked improvement not only over the short-term, but longer range, as well.

The teleconnection suite (AO, NAO, PNA, and EPO) over the next couple weeks is aligned in a manner that should promote less of an anomalous 500mb look, locally (deep eastern trough we’ve been dealing with).

If we’re able to sneak into MJO Phase 6, then a warmer “lean” would be required by mid and late April. As always, we’ll keep an eye on those trends as the majority of data keeps the MJO in the neutral phase.

The thought here is that a milder and drier overall regime will take hold over the course of the next few weeks, certainly compared to late. That said, given the pattern drivers noted above, I also want to reiterate that we shouldn’t see rain or temperatures that differ significantly from average (rather only slightly above in the temperature department and slightly below in the precipitation department over the upcoming 4 week period). Further west, the better chance of more in the way of significantly above normal temperatures (primarily in the Plains).

The latest European and JMA Weeklies agree on this overall idea.

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

Upcoming 4-week rainfall anomalies

The JMA Weeklies also show a similar story.

Permanent link to this article: https://indywx.com/2024/04/05/long-range-report-pattern-evolution-into-late-april-early-may/

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