Busy Weather Week!

We have a busy week in the weather world so please allow me to break this down in number points.

1) Cold Front is moving through this morning (Monday) delivering a good soaking for the whole state. This front will move through the whole region by this afternoon and allow overnight temps to get back into the upper 30's.

2) Tuesday starts off mostly clear as rain comes back into play Tuesday night. A Low rotating from our SW churns through South Mississippi and dumps plenty of rain going into Wednesday Morning.

3)Rain will progressively clear out Wednesday afternoon, and cold air cuts down the middle of Mississippi.

4) Overnight lows dip into the mid to upper 20's on Thursday and Friday Nights

5) Cold Air Mass also keeps Thursday and Friday's High temperature near 50.

Ring Around Moon

Many phone calls came into the Weather Center tonight. The top 2 questions were..When will it rain? and Whats up with the ring around the moon?

1) The rain will arrive late morning tomorrow (Monday) and last througout the afternoon. This is due to the passage of a cold front, but not severe weather is expected. Also, possibly a heavy rain event will bust into South Mississippi Tuesday afternoon into early Wednesday morning.

2)The ring around the moon is often called the "Halo Effect." This happens when the ice in a thin cloud layer diffracts the moon's light. Usually the cloud layer is at least 22,000 feet above the ground, which is known as high level clouds.

Foggy, Drizzly, Blues

Today seemed to define fall-like conditions. Our diurnal temperature ranged from 53-56 with cloudy/drizzle. This is due to a slow moving Low Pressure system exiting towards the east coast.

Our forecast involves two cold fronts this week. The first front will push through late Tuesday night, but GFS computer model keeps the rain in North Mississippi. The prime lifting dynamics for rain will be lacking here in South Mississippi, but I will only use little wording about this in my final forecast output.

Then early Thursday the second cold front will barge into the South. We will all notice the entrance of this front because the temps will drop off dramatically. I'm not expecting an extremely cold event, but cold is a relative term to most. Thanksgiving day will have highs in the upper 50's. And the overnight temps will be near freezing on Friday.

Frost Overnight

Wednesday night is probably our best chance of seeing a morning frost. This is not to be confused with a freeze. I'm calling for a morning low of 34 with a rebound of 68 Thursday afternoon. We're also keeping an eye out for a low to develop over Texas on Friday and possibly bring us some rain on Saturday.

Ida continues to weaken.

Ida has continued to weaken overnight and is now becoming extratropical. The system will slowly move into Alabama today. We are forecasting cloudy and breezy conditions today with a 60% chance of light rain mainly early today. Highs will be in the upper 60s with northerly winds of 15-25 mph with higher gusts. As the system moves away expect much nicer weather for the rest of the week. Rex

What to expect from Ida this evening?

(4:30pm Monday) Right now the center of Tropical Storm Ida is approximately 100 miles south of Mobile, AL and has not yet begun its much anticipated turn to the east. However a strong turn away from the Pine Belt later tonight is still forecast. Within the next couple of hours we can expect moderate rainfall to begin in Hattiesburg and Laurel as well as winds between 10-20 mph. Some parts of the Pine Belt can expect between 1-2 inches of rainfall. Counties along the coast as well as George and Greene counties may see much more rainfall as Ida makes it turn right on top of them.

Ironically, a fast moving Ida helped to actually reduce our chances of rain Monday. We were poised to have a good amount of rain develop over South Mississippi from a separate low pressure system, but Ida rushed in very quickly and zapped much of the moisture from the low. With us only forecast to get a glancing blow from Ida we actually will end up with less rain from Ida than what we may have received from the low.

Ida update !

Ida has been downgraded to tropical storm status by the National Hurricane Center. Further weakening is anticipated. The National Weather Service in Jackson feels that the storm may come close enough to our area tonight to cause winds of 20-30 with gusts up to 40. If this is the case we may experience power interruptions in some areas. In any event, the storm is expected to move away from our area early Tuesday. We expect skies to rapidly clear by Tuesday afternoon followed by string of very nice weather that is expected to last into the weekend. ! Nick will have further updates later today. Rex