Wednesday, September 18th, 2013 - Morning Weather Discussion

Well, well, well, surprise, surprise, it got a couple of degrees colder than I thought it would this morning and it is currently 39 degrees at my weather station, and POSSIBLY AN EVEN BIGGER SURPRISE IS IN STORE FOR THE MIDDLE OF NEXT WEEK! But first, we will see nice and increasingly warm temperatures through Saturday, with highs reaching the upper 60’s today, the mid 70’s tomorrow, and the upper 70’s on Friday and Saturday.  A cold front will be approaching on Saturday, bringing increasing cloudiness in the afternoon, with showers and thunderstorms heavy at times on Saturday night and Sunday.  THEN POSSIBLY A MUCH MORE IMPORTANT FEATURE TO WATCH WILL BE DEVELOPING IN THE GULF OF MEXICO THIS WEEKEND!  There is a possibility that Tropical Storm Jerry could develop in the Western Gulf of Mexico this weekend and head to the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico making landfall near Alabama, Mississippi, or the Florida Panhandle.  Jerry would then most likely get caught up in front of another strong cold front, with a strong piece of energy dropping down from Canada and merging with the remnants of Jerry as it moves northeast and up the east coast of the United States.  If this were to occur, it would bring very heavy rain and cool weather to our area starting on Monday, with the main focus and possibility of extremely heavy flooding rains being on Tuesday as the storm turns into a slow moving Nor’easter that would last through the day on Wednesday, ending early on Thursday morning.  We will have to keep a very close eye on this situation as the European model is currently depicting a severe flooding situation in our area on Tuesday and Wednesday of next week.  After this, the tropics still appear active with more things to watch.  This pattern right now is very reminiscent of what has occurred the past two late Octobers in our area.  Of course, it would NOT be anything even remotely like what happened with Superstorm Sandy, but it could be a typical tropical system with flooding rains for our area.  Many people have been asking me about the upcoming winter and I have been saying that unless things change we will likely see our first snow in October this year, and I am sticking with that thought, especially after seeing what the models are predicting with this possible storm for next Tuesday.  If this situation were to occur toward the end of October as happened the last two years we would be looking at a blizzard in our area instead of flooding rains.  Stay tuned for important updates.