Tuesday, October 7, 2008

T'storms move through the Mid-South

After a lengthy period of dry weather, I woke up this morning just before 5:00am to the sound of rain on the roof and thunder overhead! We had a torrential, albeit brief, downpour with 0.30" of rain falling in 10 minutes from a storm that had developed along a warm front traversing the region. It was also a very loud storm with nearly continuous lightning producing offspring-waking thunder! My 6-year-old, Grace, came trotting into our room a couple of minutes after I woke up (she hears thunder pretty quick, but not as quick as her Meteorologist pop) complaining about the continual cacophony outside her bedroom window. Fortunately, it was over almost as quick as it started and she was once again sound asleep under her Princess covers. Another line of storms (depicted in the radar image above) moved through a couple of hours later, around 7:00, and doused the entire city with roughly 3/4"-1" of precipitation.

We've now had our break for the day and more storms have fired as a fairly slow-moving, but strong cold front approaches from the west. Current radar indicates a developing batch of storms moving through the metro area and extending south along the MS River. Very heavy rain and likely some small hail is falling from some of these storms. This pattern will continue into the evening hours, before becoming mostly scattered showers overnight. A low chance of rain still exists tomorrow as the upper level trough follows behind the front. At the least, cloud cover will keep temps in the 70s throughout the day. A clearing pattern will commence in the wake of the trough, with partly cloudy skies and warming temps expected Thursday through the weekend.

As for me, I'll be enjoying a warm and dry weekend on the beach with family! Orange Beach, AL is our destination for a fall break excursion to the Gulf Coast. Wish you were me! ;-)

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