FIRST ALERT: Flood threat today, drier through the weekend (9/6/24)

e e all right happy Friday everyone I'm senior meteorologist Wesley Williams for WX news now and uh this Friday September 6th we're taking a look at your latest weather forecast of course risk of flooding as we watch the tropics in the gulf and a drier pattern over the weekend and we'll also talk about how you can get a tropical system to quickly spin up along a front that's sitting out in the Gulf so let's get right to some of our weather Graphics here and as we start off this video update hope you're doing well this Friday one thing that's for sure we are seeing a lot of wet weather but put a positive spin on it we're under a drought so rain when you're in a drought is actually kind of beneficial as long as it doesn't cause any flooding and let's look out the window right now we'll take some of these cams full screen for you as we take a look over at the Silver Slipper in Hancock County and uh we have some coastal flooding there earlier this week where the tide Waters washed ashore but now the tide Waters appear to be behaving a bit better uh just staying where they're supposed to be out in the sound meanwhile raindrops in gulport on the cam Linds uh as of the 8:00 hour on Friday morning you can also see some rain near I 10 in gulport and over buuy the sky is pretty cloudy and we've seen some recent showers there too now one thing is for sure there have been some incredible rain totals I mean take a look at the last 48 hours now over most of the coast rain amounts have only been around an inch once you go north of I but for area south of I 10 we've seen some pretty impressive rain totals based on radar estimates and places between Pascagoula and gulport we've seen about 1 to two inches of rain so that goes for go Gulf Park Estates Ocean Springs St Martin deluy parts of Diberville parts of wool market parts of Orange Grove but once you go west of gulport the rain was even heavier look at those totals near Long Beach to pasan Bas St Louis Waveland 3 to 5 Ines maybe 3 to six inches of rain and then that ridiculous rain total offshore of more than a foot of rain near Kat Island so we are so fortunate that the coast was spared from that uh pretty problematic rain total that could have just as easily been our problem it was a close call that is why we are under a flood watch we're under a flood watch because there is a potential to see some pretty heavy rain amounts now this flood watch is almost done we've been under it for several days now today is kind of the final full day of that with Friday and Friday night once we get to Saturday the flood watch will come to an end in the morning hours at 7:00 in the morning and at that point we'll finally begin a gradual transition to a less rainy and drier pattern into the rest of the weekend uh but until then plan on widespread rain for Friday morning and some rounds of on and off rain at times Friday midday Friday afternoon I think we could get more widespread rain Friday evening Friday night uh and then that cool front tries to move into the area helping to dry things out here's a look at the First Alert radar as of Friday morning and you can see the Gulf of Mexico is uh chalk full of rain shower activity in the northern part of the gulf that's because there's a stalled front there and also that low pressure that we've been watching for many days this week and as of the last 24 hours the National Hurricane Center is giving it a chance to become a depression or storm they call it invest 90l you know we explain what that means pretty often they use the word invest because they are investigating the chance of development they pick a number 90 through 99 and give it a number and they put a letter on the end of it since this is in the atantic Basin they put an L there the gulf Caribbean Atlantic are all a part of the at Atlantic Basin if it were on the other side of North America in the Pacific by Mexico it would be in the East Pacific so they actually use an e and then if it were farther out in the Pacific like maybe west of Hawaii or something or near Hawaii believe they give it a p as far as a letter is concerned so you can have a l a e or a p um depending on where the tropical disturbance is located this one's not moving much it hasn't really moved much it's been this little swirl of low pressure in the Gulf for most of the week and it's because there's a stalled front and that's what we're going to talk about now how can a tropical system spin up along a stationary front um so first of all you have to remember what a front is a front is a boundary between two different air masses north of a front typically in our part of the country you're going to find less humid and less warm air south of a front you're going to find more humid and warmer air uh in our part of the country and that's also driven by wind direction and wind speed because to the north of a front you're going to have winds coming in from the north to the south of a front you're going to have winds coming in from the south and those winds kind of clash or converge near the frontal boundary that front is at the planet's surface so you've got a couple of things going on because when winds are crashing at the surface well they can't go down underground so they actually begin to go up and that's what leads to cloud and Rain development along the frontal boundary because you have those converging winds which lead to Rising air currents lifting air and that leads to the development of clusters of rain showers and storms along the front so you can kind of already have the ingredients in place to make for wet weather along the front but also sometimes depending on the angle that the winds are coming in at I kind of have a more simplistic view here um you can see that sometimes you can get just a little bit of a swirl uh where those converging winds meet sometimes they can cause a swirl to spin up along that and when you have that swirl of low pressure because that's all a front is a front is just an elong elongated area of low pressure um and when you have a swirl of low pressure along that front that when it sits over warm water like the gulf which is some of the warmest water out there in the Atlantic Basin right now um that can really help tropical development to get going and there's a lot of ingredients there to create a depression or storm now with this particular front there's actually multiple swirls along that boundary and if I go back a few Graphics um where we have the satellite and First Alert radar in motion should go back one more time I'm clicking the clicker and it's okay there we go so um this should have that in motion I believe and you'll you'll be able to see a few areas where there are some swirls of rain and clouds of course the one that the National Hurricane Center is tracking with the big red L on it uh south of Texas coast but there's also another one right below the Louisiana coast if you look very closely right below where the Inn in New Orleans is there's a little bit just below and maybe to the left of where the in in New Orleans is there's a little bit of a swirl there as well I think I see another one south of the floor at a panhandle where you see some lightning happening there almost a little swirl of low pressure week there and then on the other side of Florida where the V is in Jacksonville on the map you can almost see another little swirl of low pressure there too so multiple little swirls that you you T you kind of have to watch this time of year in hurricane season in case they try to quickly spin up a swirl of low pressure that can become a tropical system now there's a bunch of other factors that you need to create a tropical system one of them is you don't need wind shear what's that wind shear are strong winds upstairs in the air that can disrupt a circulation trying to spin and I think that's what we're going to have here so that's why we're not talking about watching this development to quickly blow up to become become some monster Category 5 storm or something like that because there's a bunch of wind shear that's helping to limit development so that's good uh however even though you won't get some huge hurricane out of this maybe you might get a depression or a weak tropical storm but where's the wind circulation going well the models show that it will sit and Meander south of Louisiana's Coast as we go through Saturday and maybe it might just kind of barely drift slightly to the west of that as we go to Sunday so not really a lot of motion there and you never really see those Purple colors indicating 70 mph winds you don't see white colors indicating 100 mph winds the colors you're seeing are blue on our Mississippi Coast indicating Winds of 20 M hour or less and closer to where we have highlighted on the map you only see colors of like green maybe briefly yellow or orange indicating winds between 30 and 50 miles an hour which like I said would be a depression or a weak tropical storm if that you'll notice that that area of low pressure never comes up to our Mississippi Coast so that's why the the impacts that we're talking about here have nothing to do with wind we're more focused on the rain that's why we've been under a flood watch for multiple days our expectation what we're looking at weatherwise has not changed we're looking at rain we're looking at the risk of flooding because the rain could be Heavy at times and this is a look at that future cast which shows that abundant moisture on the coast however things could change into the weekend we are tracking a front coming in from the north and it's got a ton of dry air associated with it and that is still on the way now if you look at the details it's a possibility that maybe the air might not be as dry as initially expected I think it will still be like a crisp fall Day by the time we get to Sunday but uh maybe not a very longlasting round of that dry air and uh maybe not as dry as initially expected before we get to the dry we have to go through the wet and that's why your Friday is Chu full of rain showers you can see that those High rain chances will be with us all day long if you want to get cute with it there is a chance that maybe there's a lull or break in the rain in the middle of the day sometime around 11:00 noon 1 p.m. our modeling has been showing many spots with breaks from the rain however I don't think that's going to last forever especially as we get deeper into the afternoon and the evening we will likely see another round of widespread rain so if you have some Friday evening plans if you have some Friday night plans and know there's Friday Night Football you want to plan on wet weather don't be deceived by a possible break in the middle of the day and assume that that break will continue tonight I don't think that's how that's going to wind up I do think we will see another round of widespread showers into the afternoon and the evening and we want to be mindful that there could be some flooding at times from some of that but the general trend is for a decreasing rain chance as you can see today 90% tomorrow tonight 80% tomorrow 50% and then tomorrow night all the way down to 20% so we are gradually going to see an end to this wet pattern as we go into the weekend but we just have to be patient for that it's not going to happen all of a sudden today and even as you go to Saturday you'll notice that 50% that's actually an increase from what I was forecasting on Saturday yesterday yesterday's forecast for Saturday called for I think a 30% chance of rain and now it's come up to 50% because it's a possibility along our Coastal counties Jackson Harrison Hancock we could see some scattered showers especially in the morning hours on Saturday uh if you're Inland tomorrow uh on Saturday for areas like Stone County you might not get a whole bunch of rain there um and then you go to Sunday and it looks like it's much drier for us as that front moves in from the north but it could be a close call this map for Sunday as you look at it as well I'll make it a bit bigger on your screen um and you'll notice that you know it doesn't really show much rain on Sunday but if we take that map full screen and zoom it out the full story is told that yeah it might be dry on our Mississippi Coast on Sunday but it's a close call to an absolute wash out as there will still be plenty of rain sitting out in the Gulf with that uh tropical disturbance so um I'm hopeful that the forecast won't change and that we can keep it drrive for you on Sunday but just know that it is going to be a close call and if that rain is closer to our Coast than expected maybe there's a few showers at times on Sunday that's why we are not going with a 0% chance on Sunday but instead a 20% chance of rain on Sunday in case some of those showers are a little bit closer than expected um because there'll be more sun on Sunday I think you'll see warmer temperatures we'll see highs in the mid 80s and uh the air will feel drier too I mean there will be a noticeably crisp feel now when we showed this dupoint trend the other day that dot for Sunday was way down in the pleasant category today the models are backing off on how dry it might feel on Sunday and uh hopefully they don't continue to back off hopefully this is about as far as they go uh if that's the case then it is looking like a really Pleasant and comfortable Day for Sunday with a crisp fall feel in the air it does not last long you go to Monday it's already turning slightly muggier and then by the middle of next week we're back to whatever kind of mugginess we have now so be sure to enjoy that feel because it's fleeting while supplies last next week here's a more detailed view of that remember the dupoint number the higher this number the muggier it feels the lower this number the drier it feels and today they're way up in the 70s so it is going to be a muggy Friday with all those showers tomorrow we're still seeing muggy air du points in the 70s for most areas although Inland you might begin to get just a hint that it's less muggy in places like poville w and Wiggins now on Sunday during the first part of the day Sunday morning break out the psls right I mean we got D points way down into the 60s and 50s so that's probably as dry as it's going to be for us during the first part of the day on Sunday you can plan on it feeling really crisp for um what we've been used to recently but then you go to Sunday afternoon and some of information is suggesting that we could begin to see some of the mugginess try to slowly return as we get closer to next week so that's why I said uh while Sunday could still have that kind of pleasant crisp feel at times it might not be the entire day and uh it's not as much as we were originally thinking I thought we would see due points everywhere in the lower 50s uh because the air is not as muggy maybe some of those temperatures won't be as cool I think we'll still see 60s everywhere on Sunday morning which if we do that'll be the first time since June that places like gulport buuy will have 60s um and it's actually pretty typical to see your first round of um post August 60s in early September that's exactly what happened last year and the year before so if we do that again this year would fall right in line with the last few years um but your 7day forecast beyond the dry Sunday gradually gets us back into some more moisture by Monday with only a 30% chance of rain on Monday and then a 40% or higher chance of rain as we go to next Tuesday Wednesday Thursday going to probably be a kind of repeat pattern that's what it looks like early on right now at least we go to next week and it's going to be another situation where we see multiple days of Gulf moisture bringing us a chance of rain showers and even even though today those rain chances say 40% if we continue to monitor the trends and get higher confidence that we'll see that kind of wet setup next week then those 40% will go up to a higher chance and maybe they'll be as high as today uh where they're greater than 50 greater than 60 or so on and so forth so that's a look at your weekend Outlook as in addition to the potential for tropical development in the Gulf of Mexico and uh the possibility of some drier feeling air for Sunday I hope that you make plans on Sunday to spend time Outdoors especially in the morning to take advantage of that fleeting fall feel across parts of coastal Mississippi well that'll do it for your digital desk update I've been senior meteorologist Wesley Williams here on your Friday September 6th I hope you have a wonderful weekend and we'll catch you in the next one thanks and have a great weekend everyone for