Tuesday Morning Update

The short term forecast issues deal with how hot our afternoon temperatures will reach while the extended data concerns the exact path of Isaac.  There is a remote chance that Isaac could move closer to Eastern OK and more so western Arkansas Thursday evening into Friday with a chance of some rain and storms.  

The system has reached hurricane status this morning and has continued to slow its forward movement to near 10 mph.  This will create a very large storm surge that will eventually move into the southern gulf coastal regions from New Orleans to the northern Florida panhandle area.  The sustained winds may reach near 100 mph with some higher gusts as it makes landfall late tonight or more so early Wednesday morning near New Orleans.  The winds will cause some issues obviously across the coastal regions, but the storm surge and rainfall with the land falling system will be the higher threat to live and property.  Some of the storm surge models are predicting a 6 to 12 ft. surge combined with 14 to possibly 20 inches of rainfall during a nearly 36 hour period beginning later today.   

This morning, regarding our potential impacts from Isaac, the data has shifted more west from both the GFS and EURO with both sets of models left (west) of the official NHC forecast.  The EURO brings the storm into the southern Louisiana area just west of New Orleans with a track of the remnant low into Eastern OK Thursday evening, Friday, and Friday night.  The GFS is similar but is slightly more eastward keeping most of the precipitation Friday and Saturday morning along the OK-Arkansas state line and points east.  We'll continue to side with a low probability forecast until we see where Isaac makes land fall later tonight or tomorrow. Once the system gets into the observational network, odds are the operational models will quickly converge on an outcome and track that will lead to a higher confidence projection compared to the uncertainty continues to exist, even at this hour.  

Temperatures for the next few days will be above normal with daytime highs in the mid-90s.  Raw NAM outputs from yesterday suggested a high nearing 100 tomorrow with slightly lower dew points and north winds.  We'll not take the bait for the 100 mark, but I brought Wednesday to 96 yesterday, and will continue to keep the highs above normal for the short term.   

Morning lows should drop into the 60s for the next few mornings before moving back to the lower 60s early next week.  

While most attention remains on Isaac, another disturbance has emerged across the far Tropical Atlantic which may become another tropical cyclone during the next 4 to 6 days.  Stay tuned! 

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Thanks for reading my weather discussion this morning and have a super great day!