Friday July 30th, 2010
Greetings and welcome!
I just wanted to check in with a last minute weather update.
The NAM and the TV are looking for some rain tonight and early Saturday morning. They have it clearing out late Saturday morning, and a lingering chance that we might see some scattered showers and storms if the afternoon heat stirs up the atmosphere enough.
The NAM weighs in with some notable rain tonight for us. The NAM total QPF for the next 72 hours is 1-1.5″ with almost all of it coming overnight tonight.
That was the scenario that I floated yesterday where the main energy of the disturbance would hit us instead of the UP as otherwise predicted. With the scattered nature of it, I could only guess if it will work out, but right now it is way north, up by International Falls.
The GFS is keeping us in the lowest color area for precip (0.01-0.1″) from Friday night until Saturday afternoon. They also subscribe to the chances of some late day rain Saturday, stepping up the total rain possible to 0.1-0.25″. They show a nice day Sunday, and a total weekend QPF <0.25″.
The HPC has us in the lowest bands except for tonight & Saturday and a total of 0.1-0.25″ of rain for the weekend. There is no precip expected after Saturday afternoon.
The NWS has a chance of showers and isolated storms tonight and a chance of showers and a slight chance of thunderstorms Saturday. Rain chances with them are 40% tonight, 30% Saturday.
The bottom line? It will be a mostly very nice summer weekend. With temps in the mid-70s to low 80s, it will be really nice for late July.
The rain expected after Saturday morning is not anything organized. Think of it more as typical summer afternoon scattered showers that pop up in the heat of the day. I wouldn’t sit this weekend out on account of weather.
Watch the cloud tops.. If they start getting really tall, pay attention. More likely they will be flattened on top (capped) or cut off (shear) and won’t be able to build up high enough to support showers or a T-storm forming.
I am also going to go out on a limb and predict a good sunset Saturday evening. With a few clouds around and some moisture in the atmosphere it should have good color and maybe some feature clouds.
Have a good weekend and thank you for visiting!
RJB