August-like weather continues, and how to spot fearmongering

Good morning. The ongoing weather forecast remains more or less the same, with hot, but not too hot weather, and the potential for isolated to scattered rain showers most days. This is basically what August is like when there is no dominant ridge of high pressure overhead, or a low pressure system moving in from the Gulf of Mexico.

Thursday

Skies today will be mostly sunny, allowing highs to rise into the mid-90s. As high pressure strengthens in the region we don’t anticipate much in the way of rainfall, although it is possible a few stray showers may develop east of the city. Winds will be light, out of the southeast at 5 or 10 mph later today. Low temperatures will fall into the mid-70s for inland areas tonight, while remaining near 80 degrees along the coast.

Friday

With the ridge firmly in control, we anticipate this being a hot and sunny day with highs in the mid-90s and almost no chance of rain.

Saturday and Sunday

The forecast for the weekend again calls for partly to mostly sunny skies, with highs in the mid-90s. However, slightly better rain chances enter the forecast due to a slight atmospheric disturbance that may push across the region. For most this probably won’t have too much effect, but it will nudge rain chances each day up to about 30 percent. They are most likely to develop during the afternoon hours.

Next week

Our days in the mid-90s with slight afternoon thunderstorm chances continue for much of next week. However, by Thursday or Friday this pattern could change as a stronger upper level disturbance moves down into Texas, and this may drive some better rain chances for the region. If you’re looking for details in a rain forecast eight days hence you’ve come to the wrong place!

Tropics

On Wednesday, we posted a mini-guide for dealing with a hurricane during the COVID-19 pandemic. Here’s one thing we didn’t say: Over the next two months expect the hype train to get rolling as it’s going to be a busy period and there will be some people wanting to prey on those anxieties. To that end, we’re already starting to see some scattered social media chatter about a “GFS Hurricane in the Gulf” about 15 days from now.

Please don’t fall for this. Even the best global models become much, much less reliable after about seven days, and almost completely so after 10 days. The GFS model is notorious for spinning up spurious storms. So although we do expect to enter a more active period in about 10 days, we have no confidence about where these storms will form. If someone is showing you a model plot for a storm 250 or 300 hours from now, or more, you have our permission to roll your eyes.