Ridge, Ridge, and More Ridge

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The operative word for the upcoming week is “ridge.” Surface high pressure situated to our northeast will hold its position while in the upper levels of the atmosphere we continue to deal with a ridge. The ridge will ebb and flow a bit in response to the main storm track well to our north, so we can pretty well expect to see highs in the 90s for the next week. As the upper ridge gets stronger next weekend, we are likely to see highs in the mid 90s edging toward the upper 90s.

Come Thursday/Friday, isolated showers might be possible with the approach on Friday of a surface front. Surface fronts don’t typically make it very far south in June, so I would expect the front to reach the Ohio River Valley before stalling out. But with increased moisture levels, afternoon heating could force some isolated showers, but certainly not much rain to look forward to.

With the westerly storm track well to our north, SPC has an outlook for slight risk of severe storms in the Great Lakes area today and shifts that back west on Tuesday. And the National Hurricane Center is watching a subtropical low pressure area in the Atlantic which only has a small chance of developing into a storm as it moves northeastward.

The GFS and ECMWF are in reasonably good agreement all the way out to next weekend. The main difference has to do with the strength of the ridge with the ECMWF a tad stronger than the GFS. But positioning of the ridge is very close on both models putting the confidence factor up somewhat for the longer range.

The GFS showed some mischief in the vicinity of Florida in about a week. Not pinning a lot of hope on that coming our way since the ECMWF doesn’t seem to reflect that feature very well.

While the ridge is the big factor for the next 7 days, it seems that it will be the main story well beyond that, too. The GFS suggesting a 594 contour as the ridge gets even stronger out into voodoo country.

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Thanks for staying tuned to the Weather Xtreme Video. I will have the next edition posted around 7 am or so on Tuesday morning. Godspeed.

-Brian-

Category: Alabama's Weather