After the deluge...a few drier days

Funny how many of the losers in the rainfall derby earlier this week became winners last night. Case in point…Slidell and Gulfport which missed out on Sunday-Tuesday’s rain, but got drenched early this morning - as did Bogalusa. This graphic shows the 24-hour estimated rainfall as determined by the Hammond radar. I had 3.55” but many areas in Slidell had closer to 5”. I like to show these every few months to show you how streaky and splotchy these patterns are with areas in between receiving almost nothing. These small scale details are usually unpredictable and that’s why we talk about probabilities.

A few light showers are firing up near the Mississippi-Louisiana line in Washington Parish and are racing south, but should begin to die when the sun goes down. Overall, closer to Slidell and Gulfport, the atmosphere has been worked over, exhausted, and hung out to dry. I doubt we’ll see anything this evening, but if we do it will be light.

With a weak low pressure area to our east near Pensacola and NW flow aloft, tomorrow should be shower free. A few light showers will develop late Sunday and Monday afternoons, mostly in areas north of I-10/I-12. The chance of afternoon showers increases throughout the week, mainly because of deep layer tropical flow off the Gulf rather than any leftover front or upper air disturbance like we had last night.

As I say most days…The Foreca graphic overdoes the rainfall. I also think that the widely scattered showers starting late Sunday will be mainly afternoon and evening, not spread out over all hours. There will be an uptick in the chances by Wednesday another one next Friday and Saturday.

Notice the slightly cooler morning lows — low 70s in many Northshore locations through the weekend. Unfortunately, they rise through the week ending up in the upper 70s to near 80 reflecting increased humidity. High temperatures are more reasonable — low 90s. That’s still a few degrees above normal. As we enter into early September, the average Slidell high temperature should be 89.

Tropical Storm Dolly has formed out in the middle of the tropical Atlantic and is headed in the general direction of the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. Normally, there would be a lot of concern at this point, but the storm appears ragged with a powerful thunderstorm complex only in the SE quadrant (that’s the brightest clouds you see below) The rest of the clouds you see swirling around a center are mainly low level. There’s too much mid-level dry air and the wind shear will increase as Dolly approaches the islands. Forecasts are confident that “Hello Dolly” will go bye-bye in two days and become just a wave. The only possible threat: Some heavy rains in the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico but even that’s not certain. A few models redevelop this later, but none bring it near the U.S.

For us, there’s not much I can say. September will feature slightly above normal temperatures but rainfall should be typical. Without any tropical systems, I expect that the daily afternoon and evening shower chances go away by mid-month. However, I still have no wisdom as to when we will see our first legit. cold front.

Foreca graphic for Pensacola Beach shows highs staying in the 80s with the best chance of significant rain tomorrow. Other than that, it’s widely scattered showers. They will have more of a chance of seeing them than we will here in the New Orleans to Gulfport area. .