Tuesday Morning Forecast

Forecast Issued by Justin Gibbs on 03/28/2006 at 12:15:02 am CT

Mobile, Alabama 5 Day Forecast
Today	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
75°F	76°F	80°F	81°F	80°F
	57°F	57°F	60°F	62°F
s 5-10 mph	s 5-10 mph	s 10-15 mph	s 10-20 mph	sw 5-10 mph
20%	20%	0%	20%	40%

Detailed Forecast

Today... Isolated Showers. High 75. Winds south 5-10 mph. Chance of rain is 20 percent. Tuesday Night... Patchy fog possible in the morning. Low 57. Winds south 3-6 mph. Wednesday... Isolated showers in the afternoon. High 76. Winds south 5-10 mph. Chance of rain is 20 percent. Wednesday Night... Partly cloudy. Low 57. Winds south 5-10 mph. Thursday... Mostly sunny. High 80. Winds south 10-15 mph. Thursday Night... Isolated showers. Low 60. Winds south 10-20 mph. Chance of rain is 20 percent. Friday... Isolated Thunderstorms. High 81. Winds south 10-20 mph. Chance of rain is 20 percent. Friday Night... Scattered thunderstorms. Low 62. Winds south-southwest 5-10 mph. Chance of rain is 40 percent. Saturday... Scattered thunderstorms. High 80. Winds southwest 5-10 mph. Chance of rain is 40 percent.

Technical Discussion

Forecast Discussion (Tuesday through Saturday): Right Now... Region lies under the influence of a ridge of high pressure centered last hour about 150nm SE of Charleston, WV, ridge is aiding in providing a WAA pattern with light S-SE'ly winds being reproted across the northcentral gulf coast last hour. Not much in the way of moisture advection ongoing at the sfc with gulf buoys reporting td's in the lower 50s there simply isnt much to pull in out of the ERN gulf thanks to several recent intrusions. The WRN Gulf is a bit richer and a vertically stacked closed low is playing off the moisture dragging a cold front at the surface across the lower plains and lower mississippi valley. A few -SHRA are being indicated on radar from WRN TX to SRN Middle TN. Short Term... Main forecast challenge in the near term involves any impact of this weak frontal system on the MOB area. 0z KLIX sounding indicates a slightly drier than orignally progged airmass, however there is a bit of moisture associated with the main trof axis just downstream as indicated by the 0z KLCH sounding. 0z NAM/GFS pick this up reasonably well. GFS builds more ridging in at 700/850mb which prevents a discernable trof/moisture axis from moving through the region, while NAM shows a more rain favorable solution as the lower levels saturate ahead of the front at around 18z. At the sfc models show cold front stalling across WRN AL/ERN MS due to weak forcing aloft and a rather substantial low level ridge that persists to the east. 0z guidance is much more pronounced with this than 12/18z guidance, and 18z guidance had hinted at a weakening. Given these trends will taper back down to a 20% pop and use evening wording as it appears the earliest the front would approach the area is likey around 23/1z. Partly cloudy should describe the day fairly well as we shouldn't pick up much in the way of cloud cover until about 18/20z. For temperatures will lean towards warmer MET MOS. Tuesday night what is left of the front will clear by around 6z putting the region back in a very light southerly flow as the main ridge axis to our southeast again retakes control over the wx pattern. Dewpoint depressions drop to around 2 in MOS guidance by daybreak so will continue the patchy fog wording in the forecast. Long Term... Wednesday we will start off with a few clouds but largely should retain a Mostly Sunny/Sunny sky. Guidance is in good agreement with about a 5-10kt southerly wind in response to the building ridge axis over the ERN CONUS. Both GFS/NAM hint at seabreeze oriented activity in the afternoon hours NAM/GFS forecast soundings continue to hint at this but afternoon instability is much reduced from what we were seeing in earlier runs(e.g. NAM SBCAPE reduced from ~700 j/kg in 12z run to ~300 j/kg in the 0z data.) Will allow for a little leeway and keep the pop in the forecast for now but reduce it as well to a 20% chance. Temperatures will remain quite warm with upper level ridging in place aloft and WAA taking place at the sfc...will continue going forecasts trend of bumping up warmest MOS a degree or two for the afternoon period. Thursday GFS/NAM/UKMET/ECMWF agree on a ejecting a rapidly amplifying upper level trof off the rockies and pushing it eastward. Sfc cylcone reponds to the deepening storm system in kind by deepening and pushing to the northeast. As it does our gradient winds will begin to increase from the S at 10-15kts. Current guidance indicates this increase in winds will likely occur between 20-0z Thursday afternoon/evening. Will increase to PCLOUDY for Thursday afternoon and mark up temperatures another few degrees from MOS guidance that is already trending warmer. Will go with a 20 TSRA pop evening/overnight as guidance indicates it will take a few hours of good WAA to destabilize the boundary layer sufficiently for organized convection. Looks as if this will most likely occur overnight, but will keep ""evening"" style wording in now to allow for uncertainty. Friday is the trickiest of the forecast days, as NAM/GFS/ECMWF slow and weaken the sfc front progged to move through in the afternoon considerably...once more. ECMWF/GFS used for actual frontal passage which doesn't occur until around 6z Saturday. Moisture is also a concern as well as instability, as models again have trended down with both. Feel best solution at the moment is a bit of a split ticket between Friday and Saturday. Given weakness of frontal forcing in our area, could very well see front stall or wash out entirely by the time it arrives in this area (as has been the case several times this spring season) But upper level storm system involved over the MID MS VLY appears robust enough to dig far enough SE to help get sufficient forcing behind the system to push it through. Will however drop pops to SCTD and include on both Fri/Sat to allow for additional slowing of the storm system. Long term guidances parks us in the 80s on Thursday and keeps us there through the 7day run. This appears reasonable and will follow relatively closely minus a few tweaks toward a more preferred frontal pasage timing solution.

Hazardous Weather

No hazardous weather is expected through the forecast period.