Stuck In A Pattern, Will It Rain Soon?

Despite being out of the drought officially, the green grass is slowing fading to a brown color due to the lack of precipitation this month. On this final day of April, a grand total of 0.57" of rain fell this month at Easterwood Airport. This has been the driest month for this area since 0.29" of rain fell for the month of August last year. And our outlook does not look much better over the next couple of week as this steady pattern holds strong.

In the above image there are two distinct features, a high pressure cell anchored from the eastern Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic Ocean, and a low sitting on the lee side (east side) of the Rockies. Due to this surface flow.....storms that form will either crop to our west, north or east, but not here.

Overall, it will continue to be breezy, warm, humid and generally dry. There will be several pop up showers from time to time, but the best energy continues to rotate around us with the best rain chances from west Texas to Oklahoma and up though Indiana.

Additionally, notice the low from the above image that is over the lee side of the Rockies. A dry line is extending from this low into west Texas and is providing enough life in the air to spark off several thunderstorms, some are severe.

You can see on this radar image that there are several light showers here, but the best lift and energy remains to our west and north. Storms in west Texas will stay put and not enter the Brazos Valley.

That's the current set up, and there is no relief from the dry weather in the near future. In order to understand why....we need to look at the upper level features.

This is a look at the jet stream level (approximately 35,000 feet above the surface). From Texas to the east coast, there is a minor ridge, or even split in the flow. A "split" flow is considered to be a blocking pattern where the weather in a given area will remain similar for an extended period of time. This includes us. Therefore no big soakers are in the offing this week. But how about next week??????

At the moment, long term computer guidance shows that the "split" flow faded, but is replaced by an upper level ridge. In other words, any type of storminess will again rotate around us and we are left in the dust. I cannot rule out an isolated shower, but as far as a widespread rain event.....it looks very unlikely.

For more news and weather you can log onto: www.facebook.com/KAGSweather or www.facebook.com/KAGSTV. You can also check out our twitter feeds: @KAGSweather and @KAGSnews.