Sunday shower?

Beautiful weather with warm days and cool nights will continue through Saturday but I can’t dismiss the chance of a shower sometime on Sunday. Sunday’s forecast is full of contradictions. There will be a strong return flow from the Gulf bringing in low level moisture, so there will be more clouds than sun, but it will take a while to moisten up the atmosphere at 10,000 feet where any decent raindrop would form. The models are all agreeing that there will be light showers, but the upper air pattern doesn’t show support with a ridging pattern.

Monday could also feature a shower, but the better chances appear to happen Thursday through the following weekend. There will be some strong east-west differences in the forecast through the period as you’ll discover when you scroll down to the Pensacola Beach forecast.

The Foreca graphic shows the return of moisture, not only with the showers, which I think it overplays, but with the increasing low temperatures from Friday through Monday. My kw confidence take on Sunday is that showers are more likely near Hammond (60% chance) than in Slidell (30%) with no chance on the MS Gulf Coast. Any showers in the AM would be light from low topped stratocumulus clouds near the lake and anything in the afternoon would be inland and more capable of dropping a tenth of an inch. That chance continues into Monday.

Tuesday and probably most of Wednesday look to be rain-free. Then, we’ll be getting into a scattered, mainly afternoon shower and thunderstorm pattern more typical of mid-summer, but without the broiling 90 degree heat. The reason: Upper air temperatures are slightly cooler than normal promoting air to rise.

The last week of May looks wetter than normal with those scattered thunderstorms. Highs low to mid 80s, lows in the low 70s. Nothing frontal or tropical, so forecasting where and when will be challenging.

There’s nothing new in the hurricane season outlook. I know the experts will be issuing updates in late May and early June as the season kicks off, so I will absorb what I can and add my two cents worth sometime in the next few weeks. For most of us interested in the significant hurricanes (because we don’t live directly on the water), the real hurricane season begins in early August and ends in early October most years.

Foreca graphic for Pensacola Beach shows much better weather than Louisiana. If I didn’t have cataract surgery, I’d be tempted to pack up my Subaru and head east. Appreciate your prayers, feeling like an oldster…