textproduct: Columbia

WHAT HAS CHANGED

Aviation updated for 12z TAFs.

KEY MESSAGES

- 1. A backdoor front will usher in drier and slightly cooler air through the middle to end of this week.

- 2. Increasing moisture and rain chances by the end of the weekend into early next week.

DISCUSSION

KEY MESSAGE 1: A backdoor front will usher in drier and slightly cooler air through the middle to end of this week.

Confidence remains high in the pattern over the next several days. Extreme 500 hPa ridge remains settled over the southeastern US, with NAEFS and LREF 500 hPa heights at the 100th percentile for this time of year. Despite this, our weather looks quite pleasant through Friday owing to a backdoor front that is currently marching through the area. Highs look closer to normal - in the upper 80s and lower 90s - over the next few days but the humidity will be the major story. Below normal PWs, plentiful sunshine, and subsidence aloft will result in fairly robust mixing of the dry airmass across the central Carolinas. Afternoon dewpoints Wed/Thur are expected to fall into the 50s, and this dry airmass will foster lows each morning in the 60s! It will be a brief reprieve but a well deserved one nonetheless.

KEY MESSAGE 2: Increasing moisture and rain chances by the end of the weekend into early next week.

The persistent upper-level ridge begins to break down by the weekend as a cold front approaches the forecast area from north Saturday. A weak inverted upper trough is forecast to retrograde beneath the upper ridge and into the northern Gulf by the weekend. The combination of these two things will lead to an increase in southerly/southwesterly flow, with LREF members all showing 75th-85th percentile PWs arriving back in the area by Sunday and Monday. The inverted trough is likely to slowly lift northeastward early next week, with unsettled weather likely to return as a result.

AVIATION /12Z TUESDAY THROUGH SATURDAY/

MVFR ceilings early this morning with VFR conditions expected to return.

MVFR ceilings have developed at all terminals, except AGS/DNL with shallow moisture beneath relatively deeper dry air. Expect MVFR ceilings to continue for the next several hours as drier air filters in behind a cold front, scouring out the lower clouds with VFR cumulus expected for the rest of the day. Winds will remain out of the east between 5 to 10 knots through the day, becoming light and variable tonight. With drier air in place tonight, expect VFR conditions tonight.

EXTENDED AVIATION OUTLOOK...Rain and restrictions unlikely for much of the week with increasing chances for showers and storms this weekend.

CAE WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

SC...None. GA...None.