Summertime weather sticks around into September

Though "meteorological summer" ended on August 31, Mother Nature isn't paying any attention to the calendar as summertime conditions continue well into September. We've started off the month with a couple of days in the 90s and, unfortunately, the long-range forecast includes many more as we head into the Labor Day weekend, also the opening weekend of the college football season.

The weather pattern is dominated by an upper level pattern more akin to mid-summer than early fall as a ridge high pressure aloft encompasses much of the eastern, central, and southern U.S. This ridge, as evidenced in the video loop below by the light red/mauve colors, looks to morph a bit over the next 10 days but generally it remains fairly well entrenched across a good part of the U.S. This will mean continued above normal temperatures for at least the next week with very low rain chances.

Video above shows a loop of the next 10 days of upper level [18,000'] heights as forecast by the Wednesday mid-day GFS model. Mauve/light red colors are high pressure, which sticks around for much of the next week or more.

As for the beginning of the Delta Fair this weekend, Labor Day celebrations, and the kickoff to the Memphis Tigers football season on Saturday evening, expect heat to build, resulting in high temperatures in the mid 90s during the afternoons (low 90s at kickoff at Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium on Saturday) and low to mid 70s for early morning lows from now through early next week.

A couple of days ago I thought a cold front may push through early next week, but that scenario looks to be delayed by at least a few days, so 90°+ weather could last well into next week. Rain chances will be no better than the isolated thunderstorms that happened to form right over the city on Wednesday afternoon. Hang in there though - once this heat breaks, I expect it'll be downhill into autumn! We'll just have to wait a little longer than some of us might like! For the complete MWN Forecast, check out our mobile apps (links below) or click here for our mobile-formatted forecast page.

NOAA total rainfall estimates through Labor Day are very low - almost nothing.

Erik Proseus
MWN Meteorologist

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