Sunday, August 19, 2012

Rain in Arkansas - will it effect the Memphis metro tonight?

A shortwave (or impulse of atmospheric energy) is rotating south around the backside of a large upper level trough over the eastern U.S. mentioned in yesterday's blog. This wave has combined with heating to force scattered thunderstorms and showers over western portions of the Mid-South and Ozark region.  

Below is the radar image from Little Rock taken about 4:15pm Sunday. The showers and storms are moving southeast, but only at about 15 mph (pretty slow for storms).  If they held together and continued on their same track, a few could affect the Memphis metro area (right-center of the image).  However the cells up around Jonesboro are weakening pretty quickly (hence the dashed arrow pointing at Memphis). And while new cells could form, it would take about 3-4 hours for this precipitation to make it to the metro. By then, the sun is setting - one of the key ingredients in the formation and maintenance of these showers and storms.



Our metro forecast: increasing clouds the next couple of hours with a slight chance of rain, mainly in far western portions of the metro (along and west of the river in AR). Most folks will see little to nothing from this wave other than clouds. I think we'll have to be content with temps falling into the 70s after dark and low humidity, which should make for a pleasant evening! The rest of the week's forecast can be found on MWN here.

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