Radar, Southern Texas, Image: NOAA (Image is OLD!!!)

Click for the latest radar imagery of Southern Texas.

Brownsville, Harlingen, and Corpus Christi are feeling the effects of the next Gulf low developing along the Southern Texas coast. This storm will make a path toward Houston and then New Orleans over the next several days, dumping rain on saturated soils.

Thursday's Computer Model Forecast, Image: Unisys Weather

Thursday Night Model Forecast, Image: Unisys Weather

The images above represent computer model forecast for Thursday and Thursday night. As you can see, the Texas coastline gets drenched as a low pressure system over the Gulf of Mexico develops. That low then tracks west, bringing heavy rain to the central Gulf, and possibly heavy rain to Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama once again.

A storm tracking across the Cascades and then the Rocky Mountains is forecast to dump heavy snow.

-Dawn Brown

It is STILL raining in the midsection of the country. Click on the read more link for more on this and the tropics!

Satellite, African Coast (courtersy NOAA) Click to Enlarge

There is a tropical wave (area of low pressure with showers and thunderstorms), located off the coast of Africa that has a low chance of developing, according to the National Hurricane Center. The tropics are quiet! It’s September 24th. We can’t call it a season yet. But, it’s getting pretty close. Read yesterday’s blog to find out why Dr. Gray thinks we will make it until the first week of October with very little development. Tropical Storm Nora is expected to weaken as it moves into an unfavorable environment in the Eastern Pacific.

Upper Level Disturbance (courtesy Unisys Weather)

An upper level disturbance trapped in the Midwest caused snow to fall across the Rockies the past few days. High pressure across much of the Southeast is blocking the low from moving eastward. The low is stuck in its atmospheric place. The states between the low and the high are being subjected to cloudy, rainy weather. No warnings so far today, and no severe weather is expected. Just more rain in the bucket. I know a lot of folks across the Southeast are trying to dry out.

-Dawn Brown

Philip Klotzbach and Dr. William Gray of Colorado State University are expecting below average tropical cyclone activity over the next 15 days. In their words, “The global models are generally pessimistic about the possibility of significant tropical cyclone development over the next several days.” They are also relating a new global weather pattern (like El Nino) to the development of hurricanes in the Atlantic. It’s called the Madden-Julian Oscillation, the MJO. (The formal name for El Nino is the El Nino-Southern Oscillation or ENSO.) The MJO is an area of either more or less tropical rainfall than normal. Periods of excess tropical rainfall can lead to more tropical storms or hurricanes.  Long story short, the average number of named storms for this time of year is 1.4. Dr. Gray predicts is will be at least 70% less than average, so that’s about 1 storm in the next 15 days. So far, it looks like we may not even see that.

-Dawn Brown