A Soggy End to the Week

This radar picture tells the story for our weather over the next several days--periodic episodes of moderate to heavy amounts of rain. In fact, the HPC believes upwards of 4-5 inches of rain could fall over the next five days in a corridor from southeast Texas into southern Arkansas. For this reason, flash flood watches have been posted for much of eastern Texas into western and central portions of Louisiana, including the cities of Lake Charles, Houston, and Shreveport. A few thunderstorms could be thrown into the mix as well, but a widespread severe weather event is especially likely with this system--the primary concern is for heavy rain.

All of this rain is being driven by a strong upper level low over northern Mexico that has actually been cut off from the primary jet stream which is located across the northern tier states this afternoon. Because of this setup, this feature will be very slow to move over the next several days thus posing a threat for widespread rainfall in areas that actually could use some. Broad diffluence aloft juxtaposed with increasingly moist and slightly unstable air off the Gulf of Mexico is actually enhancing lift over portions of southeast Texas and is leading to some stronger thunderstorms on the immediate Texas coast near Galveston.

What does all of this mean locally across the GTR? Models show the trough currently over northern Mexico gradually ejecting northeast and weaken as it gets absorbed into the larger upper air flow pattern. However, moisture already in place across the area combined with the extra lift from the approaching shortwave will probably lead to an uptick in the rain intensity and coverage especially Thursday into Friday. There should not be any widespread flooding issues from this system around here but a few pockets of localized heavy rain are certainly possible as are a few thunderstorms but again no organized severe weather episode is expected.

Looks like we dry out temporarily Friday afternoon into Saturday before another storm system approaches from the west. This, unfortunately, will lead to another prolonged chance of rain across the Southeastern states with additional rain amounts of over 2" possible for most locations from Sunday - Wednesday.

Stay dry and God Bless!
IW