Fantastic Friday Forecast
After having our coldest night so far this week, our weather will start leaning in the other direction as we begin a warming trend that will last through the weekend. By Sunday, our afternoon highs will climb into the mid to upper 70s. Meanwhile, moisture levels will also increase over the next few days as our low-level flow shifts to the southeast. With that said, we expect a dry forecast through the end of the weekend.
The dry weather will end Monday. A nice batch of moisture currently residing in the Gulf of Mexico will soon get channeled into the Northern Gulf Coast states in advance of an upper-trough building in from the west. This setup will lead to a rather wet Monday and Tuesday, but a cold front pushing in from the northwest later Tuesday should help clear out most of the moisture by Wednesday.
What's making things a bit interesting in the tropics is the tropical leftovers of Ida. Ida's interaction with land has weakened her substantially over the last 24 hours, but the storm will soon find very warm waters in the northern Caribbean and eventually the Gulf of Mexico. If Ida can manage to survive her final hours over land, the storm could potentially be reborn as it moves into the Gulf of Mexico.
At this point, the chances of Ida being a threat to us are low. There's a couple reasons for this. One, by the time the storm reaches the Gulf of Mexico, wind shear will be fairly high, which would significantly limit the storm's capability to strengthen. Furthermore, a deepening trough and accompanying cold front will provide a nice roadblock, so to speak, that should keep Ida from causing trouble over the Northern Gulf Coast. The most likely scenario is that Ida's moisture will get trapped over the Florida peninsula while a much drier air mass moves over North Mississippi by the middle of next week. Thankfully, the most likely outcome is also the most fortunate outcome for us as a very waterlogged ground would have a tough time dealing with any additional rainfall.
Once a cold front passes late Tuesday, our weather should revert back to the sunny and cool conditions we've seen for most of this week.
For more forecast details, check out the WCBI Weather Webcast.
