April has been rather unusual so far. We have had very warm weather (4-6 degrees above average) and almost daily thunderstorms.
April is normally a dry month, but we have had somewhat of a summer pattern for a while. Earlier this week, a disturbance in the upper atmosphere, along with a cold front moving into North Florida, helped to produce some severe weather.
Now we are looking far to the west to see the evolution of the weather pattern this week. A strong upper-level low pressure area is in the Pacific Ocean. As it drops southward it will cause the jet stream to shift into the Southeastern United States. This will put us under that ridge of high pressure aloft, which is fairly common this time of year. That keeps all of the storm systems away. Those systems this time of year typically affect the plains and Southeast with severe weather.
It appears, however, that that pattern will only take us into the very early part of next week, as the upper level low will help a surface low to form in the Southeast by Tuesday. As the pattern breaks down, a lot of the energy in the atmosphere associated with that system will move into North Florida. We will have the potential for an area of strong thunderstorms and very heavy rain on Tuesday into Wednesday. The exact timing of this weather event is a bit undetermined at this point, but look out for a few days of rough weather.
What makes this even more interesting is that many of the computer models bring some colder air into the Southeast and MidAtlantic behind that system for the end of next week. Since it will be just about May, it would be very unlikely that we would get cool air to come into our area, but some lower humidity may be possible.
A very complex weather scenario for the week ahead indeed and it is all developing from a low in California. That is exactly why we look well beyond Florida to help us forecast the weather here.