Technical Discussion

Synopsis:

A low pressure system will approach the state through the first half of the week, bringing an opportunity for scattered showers.

Short-Term:

An upper level low is currently hovering over the Midwest region, as evidenced by the nice vorticity maximum and height patterns. It will proceed quite slowly towards the Mid-Atlantic region.  The 1200 UTC run of WRF is projecting reasonable amounts of moisture in both upper and lower levels in the atmosphere, as displayed by the relative humidity plots, so cloudy skies (but no significant precipitation) are expected tomorrow across the state, except for a few spotty showers in the southeastern portions (as the 900 UTC run of SREF is showing).

Long-Term:

The 1200 UTC runs of both WRF and GFS show the low pressure system approaching the state and bringing an associated swath of moisture by Tuesday.  The 1200 UTC run of the GEFS plumes project the precipitation to begin as Tuesday progresses.  The individual ensemble members diverge quite a bit into Wednesday and Thursday, but the general consensus is that this will not be a significant precipitation event, with 6-hour precipitation totals not really exceeding 1 inch by Wednesday.  The 900 UTC SREF ensemble's precipitation projections show the precipitation arriving late Monday evening into Tuesday, western and south-central portions of the state first.  Spotty showers appear to linger around the state through the end of our forecasting period.