Zonal Flow Returns, Extended Dry Period Expected

With the Labor Day Holiday now past us, attention turns to the weather pattern for the first full week of September.

And to be honest it has a late summer/early fall look to it. After dealing with Hurricane Ida last week across a good part of the Eastern US, a return to a tranquil weather pattern is in store for a lot of areas.

As you can see in the video image below the jet stream across the Continental US is in a zonal flow (west to east) which occasional troughs that sets up across the Northeast US and Southeast Canada. Here in the Carolinas the zonal flow will keep things moderately warm and humid through mid week before the next trough settles in. Northwest flow by Thursday will push out the humidity and bring a refreshing airmass, especially at night and the early mornings. This whole pattern looks to be in place for all of this week.

Rainfall will be very sparse this week with the lack of flow coming from either the Atlantic or Gulf of Mexico. Over the next seven days most of us will be little to no rainfall as depicted by the latest Weather Prediction Center Precipitation Forecast…

Larry Continues to Roam the Atlantic…

As we look at the Tropics, Larry is a Major Hurricane but with the zonal flow across the United States and the next trough poised to develop the steering flow will keep Larry well east of the US. That said, if you have plans for the beach this week, swell’s from Larry will propagate toward the East Coast. Rip Currents may be elevated for a while.

As we get to this weekend after Larry begins moving away, a sprawling high pressure will overtake the Western Atlantic and will connect with Southern Ridging across the US. You can see that on the images below for later this week. That will prevent any tropical activity from developing in close to the US. The ridge also brings fast easterly winds into the Caribbean which makes significant tropical development harder to come by.

So it appears that even though the climatological peak of the Atlantic Hurricane Season falls on Friday September 10th, activity in the Atlantic Basin may become quite limited by that timeframe…

After the current 7-Day Forecast period we will have to see if the flow tries to amplify again for Mid-September.

Between now and then, enjoy the fairly nice weather pattern coming up!