#Philadelphia #weather #PAwx #drought

Philly Drought Watch

Posted Friday 10/25/24 @ 11:28 AM — Our next chance of any rain appears to be the first few days of November. Unfortunately, the latest AI and ensemble models show an upper air ridge in our area that may seriously reduce the amount of rainfall we get ahead of a cold front.

Here’s the ECMWF-AIFS forecast for November 2

Here’s the GFS AI model forecast for Sunday Nov 3rd—

On the more positive side is the NAEFS (ensemble model combined GEFS and Canadian ensemble). It’s forecasting more rain and possible coastal tropical system near Florida. Likely not correct—

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The Drought Continues

Posted Thursday 10/24/24 @ 5:01 PM — I can’t remember the last time I saw so many large sprawling high-pressure systems on the weather map. Our dry weather is expected to continue into the first few days of November.

Until that time, we’ll have some colder periods towards the end of this weekend as a second cold front moves through early Saturday. We’ll see another warm-up next week. And mostly sunny skies shall prevail.

I may have to rename this blog, “The Rain Watch”. I’m currently using various statistical ensemble models and the ECMWF-AI and GFS-AI models to see about our next chance of rain

We may finally get some rain, albeit, hardly a drought-buster, sometime in the November 3rd through November 5th time frame.

Here’s the ECMWF-AIFS forecast for November 3—

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Posted Tuesday 10/22/24 @ 4:27 PM — As mentioned yesterday, two cold fronts will move through in the coming days; one late Wednesday night into Thursday and another late Friday night into Saturday.

These frontal passages have been forecast to be dry, but today’s ECMWF and Canadian RGEM show a deeper trough moving through with enough lift for with some sprinkles, mainly in NJ late Wednesday night. The few sprinkles forecast are supported by the experimental REFS. (The ECMWF-AIFS shows no showers.)

We’re only talking a one or two hundredths of an inch in a few locations.

During the weekend, our current well above average temperatures will drop to noticeably cooler levels.

The GraphCast AI-Machine Learning version of the GFS has moved the chance of rain here further down the road into November from yesterday’s forecast. So the drought continues.

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No Rain

It’s been a long time since things seemed so dry outside. And the current extended range forecasts keep thing dry for us over the next two weeks!

Yes, there will be two cold fronts moving through this week. The first one will result in a familiar pattern of having any rain shear off to the far north and west of the city—

Another cold front moves through Saturday. The models had been forecasting some light showers for us, but those have all but disappeared in the forecast—

I’m still playing with the highly experimental AI-Machine Learning version of the GFS. It still seems to show the first chance of any substantial rain here is November 3rd!

All I can say is “Wow”.

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