Cold Air Relief

A temperature this morning of 15 was the coldest we've experienced at WDAM Studios since January 4, 2008. We can also note this long cold stretch can be considered the longest stretch since 1979 in Mississippi.

My main weather story today will include a discussion on the cold weather relief. Many folks are beginning to beg for warmer temperatures after this long week of extremely cold nights. No, we won't have a trip to Jamaica, but we do have warmer temperatures on the way.

The bold arctic air mass will finally exit stage left (east) by Tuesday, and this will help increase upper level temps. Thickness values will also finally increase due to warm air expansion in the atmosphere. A 1031mb high will filter into Mississippi on Wednesday and allow a pull of moisture by Thursday to filter into the region. Of course, this will also eventually evolve into our next chance of rain late in the week, but the majority of the week will be dry since we will be in the recovery phase after an extremely dry period. Also, any lifting mechanism will be relatively absent for the work week forecast.

Friday and Saturday looks like our next chance of rain. Forecast models try to pick up on a large upper level trough rotating through the southwest and gulf coast regions into Saturday. This will be the system to watch as it should be our next rain maker.