Very Little New

Wow! What a scorcher with my highly-calibrated, expertly-placed thermometer topping out at 96. That makes for some really hot satsumas, grapefruit, and lemons. Some inland areas probably reached 98 where there’s less of a sea breeze and the soil moisture is drier. At least some areas near the Lake and Sound plus on the Southshore saw early AM thundershowers, which brings me to my first point.

Though the upper air conditions will not change much over the next week (so the heat and below normal rainfall will continue), the surface pressure pattern will change. High pressure centered slightly to our north is expected to move slightly to our south. So where and when the daily showers and storms occur will shift. This week and weekend’s tendency for early AM showers in and near the Lake and Sound will shift towards more inland, Northshore areas during the afternoon hours next week. Inland areas have been awfully dry since the epic June flash flooding - so this could be a bit of good news here.

Read on for more details plus continued good news on the tropics.

The Foreca graphic looks reasonable, except for the low temperatures which are about 2-4 degrees too low. Morning lows have been in the 78-82 range for most of us - contributing to the misery. Let’s look at this day-by-day based on a consensus of what I see the weather models doing.

Friday looks dry: Though one or two minor showers will probably perk up to spite me, this should be driest day of the bunch. Saturday morning should see some coastal AM showers and storms which will dissipate as soon as the sun rises. A few will form in other Northshore areas by mid-day. Rain chances at any one spot will be about 20%. Both days will be among the hottest of the year with heat advisories.

Sunday looks a bit more hopeful with rain chances about 30% following the same pattern: Coastal in the AM, other areas in the PM. Monday is more of the same, but with lower chances - 20%.

Tuesday is when the surface pressure pattern shift starts to manifest. Showers will be more likely in the late afternoon across Washington Parish and Pearl River County than areas further south which could go rain-free.

Wednesday will see more widespread showers and storms. But this far out, I’d still rate it at only 40%.

After that models have serious disagreements on the timing. However, the general tendency is for shower and thunderstorm chances to drop in from the north and northeast giving higher rain chances to inland Northshore areas sometime late next week or the weekend of Aug. 22. If the rain comes in over a several day period, the highs will be lower than shown. .

Models are showing the heat wave slowly going away with a return to normal rainfall and temperatures about two weeks from now — that’s the last few days of the month. That would mean highs in the upper 80s to low 90s. Hey, that would be a first step down. Here’s hoping they are right.

In the tropics: Yes, there are pretty waves coming off Africa. No, none of them are showing signs of development. The western most wave that I thought would briefly develop, isn’t and will die somewhere in the Caribbean. The second wave to its east will probably go north of the islands in about a week. Models and the expert tropical watchers don’t see any threat to the U.S. from these because of the shear. In fact, the long-range European model shows practically zero chance of a tropical storm in the Gulf through mid-September. When’s the last time you heard a forecast like that?

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Foreca graphic for Pensacola Beach shows beautiful beach weather plus my observer in Destin reports no jellyfish. Too bad school is back in session…