Monday, August 16, 2010

Afternoon storms and the remnants of TD 5 weaken

Broken line of showers and thunderstorms that developed along a strong outflow boundary (many locations across the city saw 30-40mph winds as it passed by) from storms over LA is now well southwest of the metro-Houston area and will likely continue for the next couple of hours. Much cooler temps in the upper 70's and lower 80s along with some stratiform rain, associated with a meso-high that has developed in the wake of the storms, is all the remains across the city. Another impulse can be seen generating scattered convection over LA moving southwest; however I think that the atmosphere will be to stable to support its continuation much past sunset. We will have to keep an eye on any outflow boundaries which maybe located across the region for a possible focus for thunderstorm development tomorrow afternoon.

Conditions will remain favorable for at least scattered afternoon and evening shower and thunderstorm activity as we see deep moisture remain in place...being pulled around the western side of the remnant low from TD 5.

The remnants of TD 5 are showing much less organization this evening with the low level center becoming completely exposed to the northeast of the convection. The latest surface maps also shows the pressure gradient at the surface might be weakening, as seen with some westerly winds being noted north of the center (opposed to easterly winds which would be expected from a stronger closed low). It might try and re-form a center under some of the convection seen south of the Mississippi coast over the next 12-20 hours or so, however it is quickly running out of time to do much as it continues off to the west. With the system having not strengthened much today, am still not expecting very much in the way of an impact to our local weather other then to keep moisture levels high, and bring the occasional disturbance across the area helping develop local showers and thunderstorms.

KHGX radar image with meso-high and outflow denoted:

Wind Speeds showing passing of outflow at UHMT:

Satellite and surface obs showing the weakening pressure gradient (The circled winds were being influenced by the system earlier today...not any more):


18z Model Guidance on remnant's of TD 5:


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