2008.07.29
Dolly is still out there
It doesn't look like much, but the remnants of Dolly are still producing rain and thunderstorms in the central U.S.
Hurricane Dolly came ashore a week ago in South Texas with winds of about 100 mph. It drifted westward, diminishing to a depression over northern Mexico within a day. Well, believe it or not, Dolly's remnants are still around, producing rain and thunderstorms in Kansas and Oklahoma today. During the day, the radar still had a bit of a pinwheel motion with Dolly's remnants over Kansas. This moisture is becoming wrapped into storminess associated with a weak cold front that will move eastward. It's not impossible that we could even get a little moisture out of what was once Dolly, though it would be almost impossible to tell amid the Gulf of Mexico moisture that has been steadily building. Dolly or not, there is plenty of moisture to fire scattered thunderstorms in daytime heating each of the next two days.
The much bigger story for our region could be a significant heat wave building by the weekend into early next week. We'll look closer at that as some more details become clearer.
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So much for those well below normal temperatures with above normal precipitation that the NWS CPC was calling for less than a week ago, eh? When you first posted that possibility, I saw on Accuweather's long-range forecast temperatures in the 70's for several days with rain forecast each day, now I see a string of 90's with no rain in sight. Weather forecasting still has a long way to go in the accuracy department I suppose. Sort of like those storms we had Monday night, I don't recall them ever being in our forecast, but we sure got walloped in the NRV that evening. The NWS didn't have any chance of rain posted on their site until they had passed through, and it was a 20% chance of scattered showers or storms.
Comment by Other John — July 30, 2008 @ 7:42 am
Yeah, it looks like a heat wave for a few days early next week. The low-pressure trough in the East didn't build as deeply as earlier expected, so we haven't had the consistent cold fronts or rain chances (Monday night aside), and now high pressure will be moving overhead from the central U.S. The whole cool forecast was predicated on the high staying put in the central U.S. and our area being on the "downhill" side of the circulation. Just a hunch, but I'm wondering if Dolly might have nudged things a little here and there to throw the pattern off, such as helping dislodge the high a little eastward?
Comment by Kevin Myatt — July 30, 2008 @ 9:24 am
Probably so Kevin. Had Dolly just racked westward across Mexico like so many storms before it, we might have gotten the cool spell. Tropical systems have some far-reaching and sometimes unexpected consequences from my experiences living in Virginia Beach.
Comment by Other John — July 30, 2008 @ 11:43 am