Western Blowtorch, Big Eastern Flood Threat

Written by Mark Vogan on June 29, 2013 in United States of America with 0 Comments

While temperatures over the Desert pushes all-time records today and through the weekend, there is a significant flood threat up and down the East Coast over the next 5 days with a very stuck upper air pattern.

With a Bermuda high off the Eastern Seaboard and a low pressure trough over the Ohio Valley and a monstrous ridge further west, this rather bottled up pattern is perfect for significant flooding over the next few days from Florida, Georgia up the coastal plain to Maine.

The Bermuda have will draw the warm and very moist air in off the Atlantic and even Gulf but with the deepening trough to the west blocking this moisture from progressing north-westwards, it’s in fact being funnelled up the coast. The perfect recipe for multiple inches of rain and with already soaked ground, flooding will become a problem. We’re indeed seeing that already.

Check out this 500mb vort max chart for 48 hours which shows the high off the east coast while there’s a deep trough over the Midwest which is funnelling moisture rich air NE.

gfs_namer_048_500_vort_ht

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Here’s the surface and precip chart for 36 hours.

gfs_namer_036_precip_p36

Little change at 72 hrs

500mb vort max

gfs_namer_072_500_vort_ht

Surface

gfs_namer_072_precip_p36
There’s little change in the pattern through much of next week with the offshore Bermuda high and unusually deep trough to the west, centred over the Ohio Valley. The train of moisture will continue to produce hefty showers and training storms day after day aboard a warm, very muggy flow.

Beneath the trough, temperatures will hold in the low to mid-70s with rain.

Here’s the ECMWF total precip over the next 168 hrs which takes us out to next Friday. Now that’s a lot of water!

Courtesy/Owned by AccuWeather Pro

As for the blistering heat in the Southwest, it’s on big time as I write this.

Here are some current temperatures.

Death Valley 125

Phoenix 117

Palm Springs 116

Las Vegas 115

Salt Lake City 103

Reno 100

Hope to have an update on this heat later but tomorrow and Sunday will be hotter and is likely to at least tie the all-time record of 117 in Las Vegas.

Here are the forecasted highs for tomorrow according to weather.com

us_wxhi2_large_usen_600

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