Dry thru Sunday; showers next week?

Sure, everyone wants to talk hurricanes, but if you are a gardener like I am, you’ll say the big news here is our dry spell. The culprit: Sinking, dry air in the mid- and upper-levels of the atmosphere and high pressure at surface. Little will change between now and Sunday, so water just about everything.

Next week, the surface high will move off to the east and upper level winds will favor rising motion increasing shower chances. The only trouble is that the upper level system will slow to a crawl and models are varying widely with the timing. Some bring showers into SE Louisiana as soon as Monday evening before dying them out, Others wait until Wednesday. My take is that Wednesday seems the most likely day to get something since most models are giving us at least some rain that day. See our forecast discussion for more details.

All In the tropics, Tropical Storm Gabrielle is struggling — wind shear is preventing thunderstorms from forming all the way around a center. Peak winds are only at 45 mph, but after tomorrow, conditions are much more favorable. The storm will likely go out to sea bothering no one. See Long-Range Ramblings for tropical speculations.

The Foreca graphic under-estimates the high temperatures (which is why my numbers are often higher than the graph). Otherwise it captures the rain chances well. Monday and Tuesday will still see plenty of sun with a 30% chance of an evening shower or storm in Tangipahoa and Western St. Tammany, 20% in the Slidell-Picayune-Bogalusa area, lower chances elsewhere. Tuesday is hit-or-miss afternoon showers with a 30% chance everywhere. Even if you don’t get rain, it will feel more humid Monday and Tuesday with morning lows creeping up into the 70s. Yuk!

Wednesday is our most likely day for showers and storms. Clouds should keep the highs in the 80s. Almost everyone should see rain, but I’m not expecting a drought-buster. Forecasting rainfall a week ahead of time is more challenging than pro sports betting where zealous zebras lead to zany outcomes. However, my take is that most of us will see somewhere between ¼ to 3/4” for the event .

Some of us could still see a brief shower next Thursday, but the trend is for rain-free weather with lots of sun for next Thursday-Sunday. The atmosphere should be a bit drier, so lows should get back to the mid- to upper 60s north.

After TS Gabrielle struggles in the next day, the storm has a chance to become a major hurricane, but will most likely miss everyone staying out to sea. The Bermuda High is just too weak and too far east centered over the Azores this year. That means there’s nothing preventing Gabrielle from turning northward and eventually eastward as it strengthens. No other disturbance threatens the U.S. in the next 10 days.

In the long-range, models shows a swath of deep tropical moisture in the Southern Gulf and Western Caribbean extending from the Florida Keys, Cuba, and the Cayman Islands westward across the Yucatan into Mexico. Some AI models keep trying to develop something in the Western Caribbean or near the Yucatan in the Sept. 30-Oct. 4 period. As usual, the three-weeks-from-now European probabilities of a tropical storm shows this area with a 10-20% probability. Not much to say except “wait and see”.

Locally, unless we have a tropical event….I’m expecting a warmer than normal October with mostly dry weather. Some years in late October or early November, we get the “mother of all” cold fronts where we drop from the 80s to 40s overnight and the next days high is near 60. I hope this isn’t one of those years because we all want to say it’s “fall y’all” at some point.

Foreca graphic for Pensacola Beach shows nice beach weather through Monday with highs mid-upper 80s, and lows mid 70s. The chance of showers and thunderstorms move in for Tuesday-Thursday.