Saturday, February 21, 2009

200th Weather Blog Post...with a lengthy weather discussion

Our big story of the day is the cold front passage through the Pine Belt, but this cold front will struggle to bring forth heavy down pours. Why? Well the last cold front, which passed through this past Wednesday night, left a solid dry air mass in it's wake. The dry air has still hung around today and is hindering the growth of heavy showers along the advancing cold front. Although I do know the moisture has slowly increased this afternoon but I don't expect our dewpoint to jump any higher than 40 degrees. The biggest thing helping to develop the light rain along the front is the upper level jet, which is tightening just a tad as it swings through MS and AL. The Upper Level flow will be squeezing out the existing moisture to produce the showers, and I expect the light rain to be out of our area before midnight.

What happens in the next 3 days after this front? Tomorrow will deliver a good chunk of sunshine as a strong High pressure system stabilizes the central portion of the country, but we will also see plenty of sunshine through Tuesday. Temps will be my main storyline as we will be below average with highs in the 50's on Sunday and Monday. Then Tuesday we will slowly experience a warm-up as temps nose our average mark in the mid-60's.

Days 4,5, and 6 on my 7Day forecast are warmer than normal, but, of course, another front looks to push through MS on Friday. The good news (6 days out from this event) is temps seems to remain in the 60's after the front moves through.

**Extra notes: I've picked out an interesting note about tonight's frontal passage as well as last Wednesday's front. Both fronts saw the upper level flow shift a tad northward across the country. What does this mean? Well I'm starting to notice our transition into spring as the cold Continental Polar Canadian air masses could begin to struggle to reach South Mississippi. I do expect more shots of cold air in the next two months, but our coldest days look to be behind us. **Also, after my first glance at our long term forecast, I see a couple of tidbits pointing towards a little warm up. Arctic Oscillation looks to go positive entering into March as the North Atlantic Oscillation hovers around neutral. Could we see a warm March as we have been relatively cooler in the first 2 months of '09? Stay tuned...And thanks for reading! Feel free to write at tcade@wdam.com. -Tanner Cade

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