Last Update on Rafael and a Quick Look at the Weather in the Southeast

November 7, 2024

Here's a short update on Hurricane Rafael and the tropics. I think I mentioned in my last update that the forecast spread for this storm was wider than what was shown by the first forecast cone. Well, that has proven true as shown by the current forecast below which shows a westward and then southwestward track. The forecast for this storm still has some interesting possibilities, but I will not go into that because regardless it is no threat to the US. I was hoping it would come towards the northern Gulf and bring us some rain, but that doesn't look to be in the cards for at least the short term if not ever.

Looking out to next week I'll be watching the western Caribbean again for potential development, but again this time of year it would be rare for us to see significant impacts if and when a storm does develop. Whatever level of activity we see for the rest of the season that should be the dominant pattern and in other words I think we're more or less done for the season.

The rain we've had the past several days has been a nice surprise. While not directly related, I think the presence of Rafael has funneled some moisture up our way and perhaps altered the weather pattern enough to bring most of us some much needed rain. I was hoping the storm would come our way to give us another shot at some rain but that wasn't to be. We still may get some part of it but by then I don't think there will be much left. Precip for the rest of the month is still expected to be below average. Even so, we'll have a little bit of a rainy pattern, more so near the coast, from now through maybe Tuesday. Following that we'll have one or two mostly dry days after which we'll see another chance of rain Thursday and Friday. By the way, looking that far out it is common for the pattern and/or the timing to change some as happened from my last update to today. I apologize, but that is how the weather works. Sometimes I misinterpret things as well. The nice part is that there are constant opportunities to learn, but I digress. Moving on, above average temps are also still the expectation for most of the month, although we may see some slightly cooler air that brings near normal temps late next week and into the weekend a day or two with another shot at cooler (again, just mostly near normal) temps a week later.

That's it for today. I wanted to give a final update on Rafael but otherwise the weather is fairly benign.

Have a good rest of the week and a good weekend.

Chris