Tuesday, November 5, 2024

A Little Rain Here and There Through the Weekend, Watching Hurricane Rafael Just in Case

Wednesday (High 78, Low 64): Mostly cloudy. Widely scattered showers and thunderstorms are possible during the day and the night hours. 

Thursday (High 75, Low 66): Partly to mostly cloudy. An isolated shower is still possible, especially in the morning.

Friday (High 74, Low 65): Partly to mostly cloudy. Widely scattered showers are possible. 

Saturday (High 73, Low 62): Mostly cloudy with a 40% chance of showers.

Sunday (High 72, Low 61): Partly to mostly cloudy with a 30% chance of showers.

Veterans Day (High 72, Low 51): Mostly sunny with a 20% chance of a leftover shower.

Tuesday (High 75, Low 50): Sunny. 

We were variably cloudy in Cullman today, breezy, periods of light rain, but not enough to bother voters. I had no problems with voting, even though I've seen where people around Birmingham had to wait well over an hour in lines. A friend of mine actually voted for Kilgore Trout, since Eliot Rosewater never literally got around to that. The High was 75, and the Low was 64 today. 

Could be worse. Could be rainin'.

Actually we need some rain. And we're going to get some soon. How much is the question.





We still have that slowly approaching cold front on the way. That large trough is still over the Central United States. Bringing us southerly winds around here. Most of the rain is staying to our West for now. Writing this at 8 PM. Actually been writing it off and on . . . multitasking. 




This cold front is going to stall out just to our Northwest courtesy of our ridge of high pressure that's held for quite a long time around the Southeast now. 

Tomorrow should feature more clouds than sun, but thanks to the tight pressure gradient moving elsewhere, winds should be a lot calmer than the past few days. Our chance of rain is probably only about 30%, which is about like a summer's day when you get a little better chance of rain, but it's still in the "typical" range. This means widely scattered showers moving across the map, off-and-on rain for the spots that do get some rain tomorrow/tomorrow night, about a 1-in-3 chance at any one spot getting a passing shower instead of just the clouds. The High should be about 77-78, the Low about 63-64. 

By the way, thanks to buying the wrong kind of meat, I am attempting tonight to make sloppy joes with turkey sausage. I would say I'll letcha know how that goes, but I'll probably forget by the next time I post anything. Besides . . . I don't recommend it. 

I saw where Meghan McCain posted a chicken enchilada recipe today. I don't have a woman as lovely as her who likes to cook for me, so I bookmarked it. I do feel like giving her some credit when the political season reaches its peak, because that tough ole' gal has been through it more than she was ever due. Besides, Mexican food will probably be the death of me. I can't give it up no matter how much I want to slim down. A guy not much older than me just died from a heart attack recently, guy who owned a radio station. And still I lack the willpower to part ways with that kind of food. At least if it's homemade, it's probably not that bad for ya', like Taco Bell . . . I mean as delicious as Taco Bell is, you wouldn't chow down on it every single day . . . kinda' like that McDonald's documentary . . . SUPERSIZE ME! or whatever they called it. Sad they had to make a documentary to prove something as common sense as: You have to balance out fast food with some real food once in a while, or it's gonna' make you sick eventually. I love the food from both those places, but it should be a once-in-a-while thing unless you work there. When I worked at Mickey D's, I grew to hate their food for a while. It was probably a year before I learned to love even their delectable chicken nuggets again. 

I've probably lost you all by now. 

Nonetheless . . . proceeding with the weather forecast. 

Thursday I guess I'll keep a 20% chance of rain in there, but that's probably overdoing it, rain chances looking low overall, partly to mostly cloudy skies, High in mid-70's, Low in mid-60's. If we see rain, it's more likely early in the day, leftovers from Wednesday night's shower bands. 



We finally get a frontal passage on Friday. We'll have a High in the lower-to-mid-70's and a Low in about the mid-60's. Rain chance about 30-40%. That's a tough call because of the uncertain track of Hurricane Rafael. 

Saturday is looking mostly cloudy with about a 40-50% chance of rain. I may play these rain chances conservative until there is better consensus on Rafael affecting the Gulf Coast. Anyway the High temperature probably in the lower 70's, the Low in the lower 60's. 





Even if the remnants of Tropical Cyclone Rafael were to make it to the Gulf Coast, like some models (mainly the GFS) have been showing, it might get picked up by this cold front and the mass of rain already associated with it. The extended forecast is a big mess this go-round. 

A 30% chance of rain looks reasonable for Sunday, similar temperatures. 

Then on Monday, Veterans Day, looks like a 20% chance of rain at best, most of the rain probably clearing out in the morning, and finally some sort-of-cooler air again. High in lower 70's, morning Low near 50. 

Then Tuesday looks sunny with a High near 75. So really our temperatures are going to stay above average for a while. But at least we're getting some rain here and there. And in November, you can kind of count it a good thing when you don't have to worry about any severe weather potential in a given week's time. And there are no signs of anything even close to that. I guess the only concern for that would be if TC Rafael were to somehow sustain itself better and then come up on the Gulf Coast, then areas inland would have a low risk of some low-topped supercells in those spiral rain bands. But it really looks like this system is going to be dying out before it even makes it to the Louisiana coast . . . if that's really where it's going. That remains to be seen. 



Hurricane Rafael is affecting the Cayman Islands tonight and will affect Western Cuba tomorrow. At this point, it looks like the Florida Keys may only get tropical storm impacts. This thing is expected to weaken at some point after entering the Gulf of Mexico. The model consensus is not that great on where it's going, but the models do agree on the basic idea of it weakening as it encounters a lot of vertical wind shear moving westward in the Gulf of Mexico. All that dry air may just about kill this thing. But it may maintain hurricane strength for at least a day after entering the Gulf. It may affect somewhere along the coast of Louisiana, Mississippi, or even somewhere like Mobile. But if that happens, it is expected to be a tropical storm by then, maybe a tropical storm struggling to hang together. 

As always, I'd keep an eye on this from day to day, in case any unforeseen factors were to influence this the other way, or if the landfall spot becomes clearer. Things tend to wind down in November in the tropics, but we sure had a rough hurricane season, and I'm reluctant to take any hurricane or tropical storm too lightly. Just as soon as people do that, I'm afraid "Mother Nature" could throw us a curveball. But most likely it'll just be a tropical storm by the time it affects any part of the Gulf Coast, if it even ends up there. Several tropical models and the European model are still not on board with the idea of it moving in that direction.


If we don't get some tropical moisture to fuel extra showers this weekend, then our rainfall totals should average about an inch. 

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