Friday, January 4, 2019

You asked for sunshine?? You got it!

Happy New Year, MWN fans and followers!

We've had a wet and dreary end to 2018 and start to 2019, so much so that many of you are starting to question whether the sun really does come up each morning! With 5.18" of rain officially recorded in the past 10 days (not counting today's "bleh"), I feel your pain. However, there is good news on the horizon!


Today's cold, clammy weather with a bit of dampness is brought to you courtesy of an upper-level low pressure system that is moving overhead. New MWN intern Jennifer had a great visual in her mid-day social media post:



Once that upper low moves by though, the skies will open up (no, not more rain - less clouds!) and there will be stars in the night sky and abundant sunshine in the weekend forecast!


We may also deal with some morning fog on Saturday as all of the moisture in the ground will combine with clear skies and light wind to promote potential dense fog formation, especially given that we'll start the evening off with very high relative humidity as the sky clears. After any morning fog burns off though, I expect an "Extreme Sun Warning" will verify. Temperatures rise from the mid 30s to the mid 50s on light southwest wind under high pressure. It'll be a good drying out and carwash day!



Sunday will see even warmer temperatures, though a slight increase in high clouds during the day ahead of our next system. Look for 60s in the afternoon! Speaking of the next system, don't get too worried about it. Monday presents our only decent chance of rain after today until late next week. Scattered showers will move through while highs again reach the 60 degree mark. Model trends have also been backing off precipitation amounts on Monday, with the European more bullish than the GFS, so we'll see how much we end up getting.

The GFS model from Friday morning for the period Saturday evening through next Thursday shows one potential rainmaker grazing the Mid-South on Monday. Otherwise, it's dry weather dominated by a couple of high pressure systems. (PivotalWx)

The system will be pretty progressive though, so once it's gone, expect more sunshine for the mid-week period with highs in the 60s Tuesday and cooler 50s Wednesday and Thursday. The end of the week sees a return of cloudiness and rain chances.

The NWS temperature forecast for Memphis for the next week shows well above average temperatures. (WeatherModels.com)

Given the long-range outlook below, I wouldn't expect any January snow in the next couple of weeks. But fear not! Winter is but 2 weeks old and we've gotten our share of late February/early March snow storms in recent history!


Get the latest forecast for the Mid-South on MemphisWeather.net via our website or mobile app!


Erik Proseus
MWN Meteorologist

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