A wet start to the week

Thanks to low pressure at the middle levels of the atmosphere, the work week has started off wet across the region. The low, which spun off the Texas coast late last week and has moved slowly into eastern TX now, will continue to slowly move east into the Lower Mississippi River Valley the next few days. The Mid-South is positioned ahead of this system, which is bringing up copious moisture from the Gulf of Mexico. As impulses rotate around the low, and with plenty of moisture in place, showers break out - some producing heavy rainfall. Reports of 2" or more of rain have come in from across northern sections of Shelby County this morning.

As for the forecast, with the low meandering around to out southwest, the Memphis metro region will continue to be in a favored area for occasional rain, some heavy, though with very littlt thunder thanks to limited instability, or lift, in the atmosphere. This pattern will continue through mid-week. Widespread 3-4" rain totals are possible this week. The rain will help keep temperatures down to near 80 or below, though humidity will remain high.

Drier conditions are expected late this week, with a cooler and drier autumnal airmass possibly moving over the region next week.

Links you will want to visit during this wet week:

• MWN Forecast
• StormView Interactive Radar (metro view)
• Up-to-the-minute conditions from Bartlett

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Weekend forecast discussion

Five-day total precipitation forecast for Sept. 11-16

For the last several days, most of the scattered shower and thunderstorm activity has been confined to northern Mississippi, though a few heavy showers have popped up over the metro region as well. That pattern will continue one to two more days before rain chances increase across greater Memphis late in the weekend and early next week.

Increased rain chances will be in response to an upper level low that will gradually move closer to the region and hang around into the first half of next week. That will result in a daily chance of rain and the potential for some heavy pockets of rain or flash flooding due to the slow motion of this system and the weak wind aloft that will cause individual showers or storms to be slow moving. The 5-day precipitation forecast from NOAA (above) shows where the potential for heavier rain will be through mid-week. The areas to our south will continue to have the greatest chance for rain. With all of the outdoor activities planned this weekend, I wouldn't cancel any plans, but it would be a good idea to keep an umbrella handy! Rain chances are about 40% for events like the Germantown Festival and Southern Heritage Classic.

The good part of this setup is that cloud cover will remain fairly abundant, so daytime highs will be tempered - mainly in the middle half of the 80s, though it will also serve to keep overnight lows from dropping much, remaining in the upper 60s to lower 70s. Check out the MWN Forecast for all the details.

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