Good morning from Phoenix! Welcome to the First Day of Summer. Summer officially begins at 9:57 AM. No surprises today. Another very humid day. Scattered to numerous random storms this afternoon & tonight. We have an upper low in control today. That’ll keep the temperature down a bit, and the rain chances up. Gradually, though, the trend will be for the number of storms to thin out, gradually by Friday and over the weekend. So, there will be fewer storms and hotter temperatures. The heat index will be near or above 100 by the weekend.
TODAY: Partial sunshine. Showers and storms will be rather numerous, mostly in the afternoon and evening. High today mid 80’s. Low tonight near 70.
Here’s the set-up. We have low pressure and a frontal boundary at the surface acting in concert with an upper low over the Tennessee valley. That’ll keep the temperature down a bit, and the rain chances up.
FUTURE RADAR: Storms will be rather numerous again this afternoon and especially early this morning. No severe weather is expected. Here’s a 4:00 pm snapshot
NEXT FEW DAYS: Showers and storms will be rather numerous again Thursday PM. Expect scattered storms Friday through Sunday, but fewer in number. We’ll get closer to more routine pattern. Temperatures will be held down by clouds and showers through Thursday. Highs mostly in the mid 80’s. But, over the weekend, we’ll be back to 90 or above.
TROPICAL UPDATE: Bret is a 60 mph Tropical Storm in the Tropical Atlantic. The storm will probably still be a tropical storm as it approaches the islands Thursday night. But, Bret’s future is not bright. It’s expected to encounter a hostile environment as it reaches the central Caribbean and then dissipate over the weekend.
Behind Bret, Invest 93-L has an 80% chance of becoming a Depression in the next day or two and eventually Tropical Storm Cindy.
BEACH OUTLOOK: Unfortunately, your chances of encountering a storm are better than normal on the coast Friday through Sunday. Highs in the mid 80’s. Gulf water temp. holding steady at 83.
SUMMER SOLSTICE: Today is the summer solstice. Summer begins at 9:57 AM. Longest of the year with 14 hours, 16 minutes and 36 seconds of daylight. Today is one second longer than yesterday. Then the days start getting shorter. Thursday is one second shorter than Wednesday.
Thanks for reading this Blog this morning! I’ll have another update for you in the morning. I’m on the road for the next day at the 50th American Meteorological Society Broadcast Conference here in Phoenix. For the rest of the week, my daily updates will be a bit abbreviated through Saturday. Please bear with me. Thanks. Have a great day.
–Rich