Highlights:
- Oppressive feel develops
- Scattered storms to close the week
- Less storm coverage for the 500 and Memorial Day
Ready To Sweat? A much more humid and oppressive feel will develop Wednesday (dew points likely surge to 70 by afternoon). Along with the muggy air mass, we expect scattered showers and embedded thunderstorms to develop. We’ll maintain mention of scattered storms into the weekend, but want to stress that these won’t be uniform in the least. That said, with all of the moisture in the air, stronger storms will be capable of producing locally heavy rainfall.
We continue to keep a close eye on the data for Sunday and Monday. Thankfully, latest indications suggest we see an overall decrease in aerial coverage of showers and storms both days. We’ll call it “isolated” for now. It’ll be plenty hot and humid.
Dry and sunny weather will greet us to open the new work week, along with temperatures that will approach the 80 degree mark by Tuesday. Have yard work to get caught up on? Take advantage of the early week weather.
As such, we’ll increase the chances of showers and thunderstorms in our mid week forecast. It’ll also be a much more humid feel of things (really for the first time this year) as surface dew points surge into the upper 60s to lower 70s. (In other words, “oppressive”).
Factor in PWATs (precipitable water values) zooming to 1.5″-1.8″ and the threat is there for localized heavy downpours around mid week.
Additionally, we also note the Storm Prediction Center (SPC) has placed western sections of our forecast area in a risk of severe weather Wednesday. We’ll keep a close eye on things.
As we progress into the late week period and on into the long holiday/ race weekend, a warm, humid, and unsettled time of things is expected to continue. It’s tough to pinpoint specifics from this distance, but just keep note of the threat of thunderstorms into and through the upcoming busy weekend, along with warm (highs in the lower to middle 80s; lows in the upper 60s) and humid conditions.
We’ll remain below average through the upcoming week, but temperatures will begin to moderate over the weekend into next week.
In general, we agree with the temperature anomalies above, courtesy of the GEFS. As noted, the cool start to the period will moderate and turn warmer next week. Unfortunately, that warmer trend won’t last and it’s likely we trend cooler around the Memorial Day weekend.
Drier air is still expected for mid week, as high pressure builds into the region. Needed sunshine and pleasant conditions can be expected.
As we look forward to the weekend, modeling is still at odds with one another. The European remains consistent on the idea of heavy rain while the GFS remains consistent on a drier solution (rain, but much lighter amounts). That said, we note the consensus of the GFS ensemble members is more aggressive and reflects the idea of the European. We’ll remain firm on the idea of potentially heavy rain building in Friday into Saturday.