In the post I did on the 20th (read it here) I discussed the "glimmer of hope" that would be possible in May. We got two of those glimmers, but really only benefited from this last one. On the 20th there was an upper system WAY out in the Pacific and it had a long way to go to get in an ideal position to bring what appeared to be a pretty decent chance for widespread precipitation for this week. Indeed the system did impact the high plains (and much of the central U.S.) with widespread rainfall. Some got way more than expected, others fell short once again. It's the way it is with weather. Here is a map of rainfall the past 72 hours...
and a little bit of a close-up of the high plains...
I ended that last post with "But, then beyond mid-week, it looks dismal again. What the atmosphere will be fighting is a very warm Elevated Mixed Layer (EML) or capping with warm air aloft. I'm afraid going forward that it will have to be a case of good luck to get mesoscale processes lined up to produce opportunities for rainfall. "
Which brings us to the latest upper level map...
The departing storm that brought all the rain was located over southwest Missouri this morning but had loosened it's grip on the high plains. Now attention is drawn to the jetstream over the Pacific. The pattern will be active going into June for the northern plains initially but then down into the southern plains. As I mentioned in that quote above, most of the high plains region will be fighting the warm air aloft (capping). Surface and boundary layer moisture will be making a return but the main questions will be how far west the moisture can get and if the air aloft will be too warm to prevent thunderstorms. Again, as mentioned, it will probably boil down to mesoscale processes (small scale features and interactions with overnight storms later in the week) that will spell doom or gloom in regards to precipitation. Some of the models and official NWS forecasts are someone robust in the output. Here is the latest map of possible precipitation amounts from this Thursday afternoon into the start of the next weekend....
It will be a day-to-day type of situation. The first opportunity for the Kansas region of the high plains may be as early as Monday of this next week with several opportunities throughout the week. I'm afraid to get too excited as this last system may have gotten some hopes up. For the eastern part of the high plains, yeah it sure looks good (and many may actually have gotten too much rain so far). But I just have a sneaking suspicion that the warm air aloft may win out on most days for the high plains. Again, it will be these mesoscale processes that might call the shots. Fingers crossed.
I still intend to address the remainder of the summer in later posts...
No comments:
Post a Comment