The Trough And The Tropics...It Means Trouble.
Obviously, a glorious day across the region with sunshine, light west winds, lowered humidity and temps warming into the mid-upper 80's. Just an incredible beach day which could not happen at a better time. In fact, once I finish this blog that is exactly where I am heading! :must type faster:
High clouds will start to increase this afternoon ahead of our next weather maker which will be arriving late tonight into much of the day tomorrow. A cold front will approach tonight which could trigger a few scattered showers or a thunderstorm inland, especially after midnight. As this front pushes through Monday, is will be slowing and stalling over us, with a wave of low pressure developing along the front. Deep moisture convergence will be in place along with tremendous lift in the atmosphere to allow for locally heavy rain on Monday with embedded thunderstorms. Some downpours will cause urban street flooding in poor drainage areas. It could get messy with the heavy rain filling in during the morning and becoming heavy during the lunch hour into the afternoon. By the end of the day, the heaviest rain should be winding down as the front finally pushes off the coast. A widespread 1-2" rainfall is possible in this frontal passage. Breezy SW winds ahead of front should help push high temps into the Lwr 70's
As a trough digs in and energizes and upper level low sitting over New England Tuesday, the atmosphere will remain highly unstable with the cool air aloft and low parked just off the coast. Cloudy, cool damp conditions will last into Tuesday with scattered showers. Cool NW winds will keep temps in the 60's and lwr 70's
Not much change to the weather on Wednesday with a vertically stacked surface low along with the upper low right over us. Still plenty of clouds with cool temps aloft in unstable airmass will trigger diurnally driven scattered showers or thunderstorms with the heating of the day...which will diminish with the setting of the sun. The upper low finally begins to pull away with some increasing sun by the end of the week and some warming temps back into the lwr 80's by Friday.
The Gulf of Mexico is alive with Tropical storm Debby continuing to get stronger. This will be a slow moving storm which will likely become a minimal hurricane or better depending upon the path this storm eventually takes...which is still very much up in the air. This morning the National Hurricane Track was taking the storm towards Texas, then shifted further north Towards Louisiana. Now at 12 Z most models have trended farther East. At this point anything can happen. A land fall at the Texas coast is looking less likely. Anywhere from Louisiana to the west coast of Florida should prepare for Hurricane conditions as this storm will continue to get stronger in the next 24 -36 hours. Not just wind, but flooding rains on the eastern side will be a problem. Already maximum sustained winds are up to 60 mph. This storm will have serious effects no matter where it makes landfall, but because of it's massive size will have an impact on a very large area no matter where the NHC cone is.
The real question is does the storm get caught by the trough in the east and get directed towards Florida and then into the Atlantic? Or does the storm miss the trough and drift slowly north or west towards Louisiana or Texas. Models are all over but the NHC will likely be adjusting the track further East now because of these Easterly trends in the models. Hard to have any confidence at this point of what is going to happen, except that Debby will be ramping up over the warm Gulf water with good outflow. So far, there has been sheering keeping the storm from organizing, but a relaxing of that sheer will allow for a better structure to form. If the trough gets Debby, then we are looking at a Tropical Storm making landfall from Panama City, FL. If it goes west, a hurricane landfall in Texas. Anything goes at this point. Stay tuned!
