Friday's forecast for December 17, 2010

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Today: High of 47 and mostly cloudy; winds northwest at 5-10mph



Tonight: Low of 35 with overcast conditions; winds northwest at 5-10mph

~Jackson, MS


Currently
Goodmorning and a Happy Friday to each and every one of you! A cold morning to wake up to with a wind chill factor of 36 degrees, however, it is Friday nevertheless. Before I start this forecast, I would like to congratulate all of the successful college graduates who are graduating in December. Good luck and may God continue to bless you all on your future endeavors.
So, today is starting off pretty cool today and it won't warm up much today.

What's Happening Atmospherically
So,as you woke up for work this morning you most likely noticed the thick stratus deck of clouds we have covering the skies today. This stratus deck of clouds are left by the low pressure system that swept through yesterday and is now currently hanging along the coastline of FL. It brought some rain to our area but as my forecast from yesterday pointed out that we was not going to get much rain out of it. However, we are not completely done with these lingering showers as we have a bit of return flow that could give us some isolated showers for tonight. Return flow is define as reference to a fast flow of warm and moist air from the Gulf of Mexico after a period of drier and cooler weather. This return flow develops into showers streaming from the Gulf.

These showers will hang about mostly in southern MS but will try to creep slightly to the mid section of the region. The National Weather Service has called for a 50% chance of rain but I will undercut that percentage by half. NAM/GFS models show a little bit of moisture with the NAM showing more of it. I've also looked at what the Canadian model and Bufkit were displaying and the Canadian does show a little bit of moisture in the Jackson area, but Bufkit is calling for no rain at all. This is pretty much a hit-and -miss deal where a city such as Brandon or Pearl may get a shot of rain but Jackson is completely skipped. These isolated showers will mostly occur below interstate 20 along with low temperatures, and so you can't completely rule out the possiblity of a few flurries and freezing rain. The best to see possible flurries will be mostly in the south. These showers are only going to be isolated, so no major washout.

By observing the satellite/radar images, we have both thick and vey high clouds today. With the thickness of the clouds today, it is going to be very tough to get temperatures out of the 40s and into the 50s. We'll see a few breaks here and there to allow some sunshine through, but we'll mostly look at overcast conditions for most of the day. A ridge of high pressure begins to take its place in the southern region and so we'll see skies beginning to clear out for us starting Saturday and temperatures back around normal.

Today
Thick clouds will continue to cover up our skies as temperatures warm up very slightly. Temperatures will have a tough time getting out of the mid to upper 40s with winds from the northwest at 5 to 10mph.

Tonight
Isolated showers in the area but nothing heavy as far as rain totals go. Cloudy with lows in the mid 30s tonight with winds out of the northwest at 5-10mph.

Weekend outlook
Welcome back the sunshine as those clouds finally moves out leaving way to sunny conditions and a nice day to go shopping to gather up those last minute Christmas gifts. Temperatures will make it the 50s but we will drop rather quickly Saturday night as lows will reach the upper 20s! We'll remain pretty much sunny and having highs in the lower 50s throughout the weekend.

Looking ahead to next week and close to Christmas, we could potentially see temperatures in the upper 60s as a warming trend starts. Hope you all enjoy the weekend and I hope no one has to wrestle anybody down at the malls while shopping! See you all back next Monday and God bless!