The Week Opens Quiet Before More Unsettled Times Return…
High pressure will remain in control of our weather pattern through the early portions of the new week. This will supply continued dry conditions, along with plentiful sunshine. Humidity values will remain comfortable as we open the work week before turning increasingly muggy as midweek nears.
As high pressure moves off to the east, a southwesterly air flow will help moisture return to the state by mid and late week. As a cold front enters the picture, overall coverage of showers and thunderstorms will increase and become scattered to numerous. We’re not expecting any sort of all-day rains, but chances of getting wet from time to time will go up Wednesday through Friday.
Rainfall totals should fall in the 0.50″ to 1.00″ range for most, but there will be a few folks who pick up locally heavier amounts the second half of the week.
As of now, we think the cold front will pass Friday evening and set-up another pleasant weekend with seasonable temperatures. The stretch of gorgeous August weekends’ appears to roll along.
What else we’re working on: With us about to flip the page to the second half of August, thoughts continue to shift to the upcoming meteorological fall and winter seasons ahead. Early data paints an “intriguing” look, complete with high latitude blocking and neutral ENSO look. Winter enthusiasts should like the look overall as this will have an impact on the prospects of cold getting going earlier than recent years past. Much more on fall and winter in the weeks ahead… The other big item of interest has to do with the tropics. A new disturbance will traverse the MDR (Main Development Region) this week and given the overall upper level pattern over the CONUS, we’ll have to keep an eye on the East Coast Weeks 2-3.
2.) Showers will creep north overnight into Monday morning, but shouldn’t amount to much. They will be scattered in nature across central Indiana.
3.) More widespread rain and embedded thunder will develop Monday night into Tuesday morning. This should amount of widespread half inch to one inch totals across the viewing area.
4.) A moist southwest flow will help push a warmer regime northward for the second half of the week. Though warm, we’ll also have to deal with periods of rain as disturbances track northeast. We circle Friday and Sunday as the wettest days and remain optimistic Saturday will feature dry and unseasonably warm conditions (lower-middle 60s). Between the rainy days Friday and Sunday, additional rainfall totals of 1″-2″ seem like a good bet.
5.) The evolution of the pattern just beyond the 7-day period we’ll begin to take on an increasingly wintry look and we remain confident on a flip back to wintry conditions as we roll through the last week of the month. We’ll have to keep a close eye on a storm system in the 8-10 day period. It’s obviously way too early to discuss specifics, but this will be the time the pattern is beginning to turn back towards a wintry regime…
The overall set-up is certainly an intriguing one. Cross-polar flow seeds pressing arctic air into the pattern (again, it comes in “waves” over the next couple weeks, each subsequently stronger). What’s of particular interest is the battle that develops between a tag-team of ridges- SW and SE (at times these will put up more resistance than the other). Long-time Hoosiers know that when cross-polar flow gets involved it can “suppress” storms, but rest easy in knowing that the SE ridge will provide resistance. In fact, some across the lower Ohio and TN Valleys may eventually complain that the southeast ridge is providing too much resistance.