Summer showed up! How about a reprieve?

Wow, May has flown by! Between commitments to Memphis in May, work, and shuffling the #TeamMWN intern deck, the blog has taken a backseat! Time to get back to business!

Summer's arrival

I know you didn't miss its arrival, because it kind of came right in the front door without knocking!

It seems like an eternity ago, but the second week of May was darn pleasant with highs in the 60s and 70s. We should have known it couldn't last! The past two weeks have averaged 14 degrees above normal. Historically speaking, May 15-28, 2019 was the 4th warmest such period on record with an average temperature of 79.0 degrees. In fact, I'm not sure which is hotter - the weather or Penny Hardaway's recruiting of late!

A reprieve in the form of a cold front

As the upper level ridge of high pressure that has dominated the weather in the southeast U.S. breaks down and a new ridge sets up shop to our north, a cold front will push through the Mid-South on Thursday. (Incidentally, this southeast ridge/west coast trough pattern has also been responsible for the repeated severe weather episodes in the Plains and Midwest lately.)

Storms to our northwest will weaken considerably before the remaining precipitation moves through the region tonight into Thursday. I say "remaining" precipitation because as the pattern breaks down, the forcing for showers and thunderstorms also weakens. That leaves us with perhaps not as much widespread rainfall as we could use after a couple of dry weeks. Over the next 24 hours, most places in the greater metro will receive less than 1/4", while a few spots may see little to no rain at all.

NOAA's precipitation forecast through Thursday evening calls for the heaviest precipitation to remain to our west, with light amounts expected over the metro, even with frontal passage tomorrow. (NWS/WPC via Pivotal Weather)

The good news with the front is it brings an end to the 90s for at least a couple of days and allows dewpoints to fall into the 50s to lower 60s - much more comfortable than the humid air we've had of late! The lower dewpoints also means our overnight lows will drop back into the 60s starting Thursday night and continuing into the weekend. And while high temperatures rebound to near 90 this weekend after a couple of days in the mid 80s, the suppressed humidity levels should mean negligible heat indices. It'll just feel like 90 instead of 95-97!

This weekend and beyond

Overall, we should have a mainly dry weekend and early part of next week before the pattern starts to shift again and precipitation chances rise by mid-week as humid air also makes a return. Overall, temperatures will likely average a bit above normal for the first half of June with precipitation also likely to be a bit above average.

The temperature outlook from NOAA for June 6-12 indicates slight odds towards a warmer than average second week of June in the Mid-South. (NOAA/COC via Pivotal Weather)

The precipitation outlook from NOAA for June 6-12 indicates good odds of a wetter than average second week of June in the Mid-South. (NOAA/COC via Pivotal Weather)

Mobile apps

On a bit of a side note, the MemphisWeather.net and StormWatch+ iOS apps have been updated in the App Store with some speed improvements for those who utilize StormWatch+ Alerts and the restoral of a couple of features that had to be "re-worked" in previous released. You can update your apps in the App Store, or use the links below to learn more and download if you've never been an MWN app consumer! Our daily forecast, as well as radar, satellite, severe weather outlooks, current conditions from around the metro, and much more are all in one neat little package! (Android users: your update will be out within a matter of days!)

For those that have made it this far, I'll also drop one more little nugget... this round of app updates is likely to be one of the last (unless there are bug fixes) for this iteration of the MWN and StormWatch+ apps. We have an all-new design and some exciting new features that we are working on pushing out later this year! Stay tuned!

Erik Proseus
MWN Meteorologist

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