Severe Weather Next Week?

We've been dealing with some rainy days across Mississippi the last couple of days, but some sunshine and warmer temperatures are on the way for this weekend and into next week. An area of high pressure will influence our weather at least for Saturday, which will give us a cool start to the day, but temperatures will rebound nicely into the lower 70s. But this feature will begin to slide eastward during the day Saturday, and we'll see a return to some southeasterly to southerly flow across the area for Sunday.

This is a surface map featuring temperatures and pressure values for Sunday afternoon. Weak high pressure has shifted into the western Atlantic surrounded by a low just to the north of New York, and another just east of Bermuda (almost off the page). This high will reassert itself and be anchored over the west-central Atlantic for the next several days.

As typical for most mid-latitude cyclones, here's a surface image for Monday afternoon. You can see strong surface low pressure developing to the lee of the Rockies in southeast Colorado. Notice the high pressure system over the western Atlantic as well. These two systems will create a fairly strong pressure gradient over the central and eastern part of the country during the week and therefore we'll see windy conditions across the area. Also, we'll see warming temperatures into the week, with temperatures likely cracking the 80 degree mark starting on Monday but more likely to occur during the day Tuesday.

Here's a look at moisture and its advection. Given the aforementioned two strong pressure systems, moisture transport will likely be enhanced off the Gulf of Mexico into the Lower Mississippi Valley and eastern Plains. Dewpoint temperatures will already be into the 50s for Monday, and these numbers will only go up through the week in advance of a powerful storm system ejecting eastward.

Here is the Day 4-8 convective outlook from the Storm Prediction Center. Notice the progression and expansion of the severe weather risk from Monday (red circle, day 4) to Wednesday (green circle, day 6). This is an indication to the potential severity of this storm system, as it will be ejecting eastward and strengthening throughout the week.

Here's the upper level jet structure / jet stream / for Wednesday. Notice a large and deep upper-level trough across the center of the country, with the parts of the Southeast, including parts of MS/AL/TN located in the favorable right entrance region of a strong upper jet streak. Additionally, there is almost a 90 degree difference in the winds at this level / 250 mb / across MS/AL particularly. This indicates that we have enhanced diffluence, or the spreading apart of the wind vectors, across this area. What this means is that there could be some enhanced surface lift as a result of this diffluence across this particular area.

It should also be mentioned that this area will also be collocated with at least moderate instability during the Wednesday-Thursday timeframe. As such, it appears that a relatively high threat of severe weather exists across parts of the Lower MS Valley. Now, models are still having a fairly difficult time in resolving the specifics of this storm system. But as it stands now, parts of the central and eastern Great Plains  (Monday/Tuesday) into the Lower MS Valley (Wednesday/Thursday) stand to have a risk of severe weather, including all modes of severe weather.

If you live in any of the areas featured in the SPC outlook shown above, you should remain abreast of the weather forecast throughout the weekend into next week.

Enjoy the weekend, and God Bless!

IW