from Victoria-Weather
Let’s hope, now that manual posts are required, this look ahead can be posted on the various social media outlets.
Idaho Falls, Idaho
Springfield, Illinois
Road Trip from Springfield to Providence, Rhode Island
Binghamton, New York
Portland, Oregon
8:14PM: Helene has really made an impact. The good news is that the storm made it onshore in a relatively sparsely populated area. The other good news is that the storm moved quickly, landfalling only yesterday and is now over the Ohio Valley. The bad news is, this very strong storm and it tracked over the southern Appalachians. Undoubtedly, you have heard that Asheville, North Carolina has been cut off by flash floods. Those red and purple rain totals around Tallahassee and central Georgia are much more manageable than when you get up towards the terrain of the Piedmont.
Rain will continue for another couple of days, growing weaker over the Lower Ohio Valley, but in another bit of good news, recovery can start now for those affected.
Now with the end of Dlvr.it’s free program for publishing posts on social media (which got us through about 10 years, honestly), I’m looking to make update posts in a more easily transferred format, manually. So this is it! When I don’t have other posts to publish, I’ll amalgamate all of the daily updates into one post, such as this one, and it can be a one stop shop for recaps when I have them. Stop by the site regularly!
12:46AM: There was a severe thunderstorm watch in the evening for southeastern Oklahoma, and storms are mostly winding down. There is still one cell that is severe and crossing the Red River for Sherman. What I’m particularly taken with is how much lightning there still is in the Sooner State as we approach 1AM.
We’re going to return to Upstate New York for our forecast today. It’s been a little bit active, and even though we are looking at New York, we would still be advised to take a look at the Tropics.
At 353PM, ET, Glens Falls was reporting a temperature of 66 degrees with overcast skies. Low pressure in the Gulf Stream and low pressure moving into the Great Lakes were connected by an undulating boundary running through the Mid-Atlantic. A smattering of rain showers was moving along the northern periphery of the boundary, and was likely to clip Glens Falls as this afternoon continues.
A narrow ridge will build into the region tomorrow as the boundary stretching between the two systems will break down. While Tuesday will be dry, the low will organize in the Great Lakes during that same stretch. Though the system will begin occluding fairly quickly before it arrives, a healthy shot of rain is expected starting on Wednesday morning. Because the feature will be breaking down on Wednesday, expect difficulties in clearing it out. Heavy rain is possible Wednesday morning, with more scattered and lighter rain through the afternoon and evening.
Tomorrow – Mostly sunny, morning haze, High 71, Low 51
Wednesday – Rain arrives early, lingering through the day, High 62, Low 51
TWC: Tomorrow – Partly cloudy skies High 70, Low 45
Wednesday – Cloudy with showers High 62, Low 49
AW: Tomorrow – Mostly cloudy High 70, Low 44
Wednesday – Cloudy with a couple of showers High 63, Low 48
NWS: Tomorrow – Mostly sunny, High 71, Low 49,
Wednesday – A chance of showers, mainly after 8am. Cloudy, High 64, Low 52
WB: Tomorrow – Mostly sunny, High 79, Low 53
Wednesday – Cloudy with a 50 percent chance of rain, High 62, Low 51
WN: Tomorrow – Partly cloudy, High 71, Low 49
Wednesday – Mostly cloudy with scattered showers, High 63, Low 53
CLI: Tomorrow – Mostly cloudy, High 70, Low 52
Wednesday – Light rain showers, High 65, Low 47
Let’s take a look at the local take on the situation, from ABC 10 in Albany.
The Atlantic Basin is also home to TD Nine, which should become a tropical storm, and ultimately a hurricane before landfalling, likely in the Florida Panhandle, later this week.
UPDATE: The NHC now has a page with a track cone, which does indeed place it’s landfall in the Florida Panhandle, around Apalachicola. As seems to be the case pretty often now, it will likely be a Category 3 storm upon the storm’s arrival late this week. It will be a strong storm, battering a part of the coast that has seen a few storms lately, but it will arrive, as presently forecast, in about as sparsely populated a stretch of the coast as you’ll find.
Vacation season is right around the corner, and there is a Tropical Storm getting ready to make it’s way ashore near Acapulco. Tropical Storm John is going to landfall in Oaxaca State today, and will pose a significant flash flooding threat thanks to the terrain and infrastructure of the region. Fortunately, the storm isn’t terribly strong and won’t last long, but this part of the world doesn’t see landfalls terribly often, and it’s particularly poorly set up for the heavy rain.
Please note, dlvr.it, the software I have used to publish directly to social media is going to a different structure. Going forward, please check the site itself for updates like these, and I will try to post full posts manually on Twitter and Facebook.
We’re headed Gulfward to start the new week. This drive doesn’t quite mirror our drive leading into the weekend, and will lead to a longer drive, lasting into a third day, while also at a pace that is faster, covering 67.5mph. This will allow us to cover 539.7 miles the first two days, leaving the rest of the 1519 miles for Wednesday.
DAY ONE (Monday)
In a manner that is frighteningly similar to the one seen on our way up to Manchester last week, a wave will be moving into the Mid-Atlantic just as we are driving through the area. The drive through New England and downstate New York should be dry, if increasingly cloudy. The threat for rain will pick up around Allentown, and will persist through the remainder of the drive through the Keystone State, as well as the snips of Maryland, West Virginia and Virginia we see (We will touch 8 states in all through this drive). The day will end with some light rain, as it will have been spotty throughout the afternoon, in Stephen City, Virginia, which is on the south side of Winchester.
DAY TWO (Tuesday)
A big lingering area of low pressure is hanging out in the Gulf Stream, and is slowing down any progress through the Eastern Time Zone. There won’t be an organized system, so to speak, but the lingering showers will turn into morning fog on Tuesday up against the Blue Ridge Mountains, with rain picking up pretty quickly again as the day begins. As we start to get into the mountains, we’ll eventually get to the western face of the mountains, in Tennessee, and we should start to enjoy some drier pavement from about Bristol to Chattanooga. It won’t remain entirely dry, as a reinforcing shot of cold air might bring some more wet weather to Tennessee as the lingering moisture starts trying to organize late in the day. We won’t spend much more than 15 miles in northwest Georgia, but we are still going to post up for the night in Slygo.
DAY THREE (Wednesday)
The NHC is monitoring a developing feature off the coast of Nicaragua, which will start drifting further to the north through the next couple of days. Models are starting to agree that it is looking more and more like it will become a tropical storm, and ultimately, a hurricane before making land fall, unfortunately probably along the Gulf Coast. Guidance suggests that landfall will come around Fort Walton Beach on Thursday, which furthermore means our drive on Wednesday towards the Gulf Coast will be very dependent on the pace of the storm. I suspect we will see a little bit of rain in Alabama, but it will clear out fairly quickly. Ironically, moisture will be flowing off shore, which isn’t generally a great way to produce a lot of storms, so I don’t think we will see much rain. In fact, I would say by the time we reach Gulfport, it should be dry. Won’t last, but my forecast doesn’t go beyond Wednesday.
These East Coast trips are perhaps even more susceptible to inclement weather. The weather isn’t worse, but the travel is more urban, and a bit of rain can really tie things up. We’ll take two days, including longer day on Saturday, to get from southwest Georgia to southeast New Hampshire. It’s a 1,245 mile journey, taken at a 63.7mph pace. The first night day will end, theoretically, after about the 510 mile mark, leaving a monstrous second day of travel.
DAY ONE (Friday)
The remnants of Tropical Storm Gordon, which brought heavy rain to the Carolinas is now drifting northwestward along the Gulf Stream. The rotation wrought by the storm throughout he Eastern Seaboard is continuing to bring some clouds and spotty rain showers, especially in northern exposures of the Appalachians, and even as far south as the Smokey and Blue Ridge Mountains. Fortunately, this does not include Georgia, but there will be some drizzle and overcast in the Carolinas, leading to additional slowdowns through the Piedmont and Charlotte. Traffic will be thinner, but the spits and starts of rain will continue to Christianburg, the city at the Blacksburg exit in Virginia.
DAY TWO (Saturday)
I’ve got something from the good news department: Our route is not taking us through DC, Philadelphia or New York City. This is great, because it means we will avoid all the traffic brought upon by a stationary boundary setting up between the remnants of Gordon and a wave rippling through northern Ontario. We are likely to see rain in at least 4 states, starting around Winchester, Virginia, continuing through West Virginia and Maryland, and continuing to Pennsylvania. The rain will start to wind down as we approach Allentown. Even after that point, however, we will be arriving in the moisture rich environment in the wake of Gordon. While the more widespread rain will be behind us, especially as we hit Connecticut and Massachusetts, the chance for a spit of rain can’t be ruled out.
Francine is dawdling through the Lower Mississippi Valley. Last night, models suggested she might meander as far north as Minnesota and Wisconsin and I was naturally curious. I don’t recall such a feature ever reaching this far north, so I looked to confirm that was still the suspicion today. Not so much.
One thing I did notice, though, was something that appeared on both American models by Monday evening. I’ve selected the NAM because it is more dramatic looking, but it also appears on the GFS outlook for the same time.
You might find yourself getting ready to head to the grocery stores to stock your cupboards on the Outer Banks, or perhaps looking for safe haven inland. Right now, however, there is nothing even appearing on the NHC page for this zone. There are other waves, and even a Tropical Depression 7 out in the Atlantic, but this is not presently being monitored for development in the net 48 hours.
A massive reason for that is that this feature projects to develop out of thin (well, thickly humid air) air over the Gulf Stream. Certainly possible, but there aren’t obvious drivers for the development, like the induced rotation of a wave. Second, and this is very important: the American Models are the only sources pinging this development.
Moving forward, the GFS and the NAM took their low into North Carolina and Virginia, eventually wasting away in West Virginia. The Europ leaves the band of precipitation over the Atlantic, generally unchanged. Through the extended forecast, this band still remains there, adopting a bit of wave in the long term, but not at the same time or to the degree that the American output suggest.
It’s the tail of a cold front, associated with the wave moving through the Northern Plains today. We should hope for the European Model to bear out, because this would suggest TD7, even if it develops, is going to get pushed north in the open ocean. It may also suggest that the NHC observes the GFS/NAM solution, and isn’t monitoring for tropical development, instead labeling whatever potential gnarliness as subtropical.
We will need to continue to monitor the tropics over the weekend. It looks like we will be in the clear, but it is also important to realize things may change on a dime.
Two things were true about the weather in Visalia early this week. First, it was miserably hot, hitting 106 on Monday and tempering a bit to something more livable, hitting 99 on Tuesday. Second, because of the clear skies and somewhat dry air, temperatures cooled off to a much more reasonable level overnight. Everyone knew it would be hot, but only three outlets, The Weather Channel, Accuweather and Victoria-Weather (in that order) accounted for it, while the other 4 were out in left field, also rans, as it were. I want to be clear, though, with temperatures like this, nobody should be doing any running.
Actuals: Monday, High 106, Low 66
Tuesday, High 99, Low 64
Grade A-C