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Sunday, May 24, 2009

Tropical low spins over Mid-South




It's not all that often that the Mid-South gets to see a remnant low from a former "almost tropical" system over the area, but that's exactly what is happening today. The low that everyone was watching over the Gulf this past week didn't quite make it to a tropical depression (although another day over water and it might have) and came ashore near the AL/MS state line on Saturday. Over the past 24 hours the system has moved northwest around the periphery of high pressure ridging to the east. With abundant moisture in place (note the humidity levels this weekend), the low has tapped into daytime heating to produce scattered showers and a few thunderstorms this afternoon.

Satellite and radar imagery tells the whole story as these showers rotate counter-clockwise around the low, which as of this writing is positioned over east-central AR. The radar image above shows the banding of the rain showers typical in this type of system. The embedded movie loop of visible satellite shows the characteristic "spin" of the low pressure. The pictures above show the cumulus cloud field over the area and the darker clouds containing showers. Being on the east side of the low for the next couple of days will mean a wind component from the south and residual moisture that will combine to produce mainly daytime and evening showers and thunderstorms until a cold front later in the week can push all of it out of here. See more radar and satellite, as well as the MWN Forecast for Memphis, at MemphisWeather.net.

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