00:00We're finally getting some meaningful drought relief in the drought-stricken southeast.
00:05We've had a lot of wildfires in South Georgia, North Florida, and the drought severity index,
00:11the drought monitor, has been in a very bad state here lately.
00:14Taking a look at where we stand right now.
00:16Now, the new data will be in on Thursday, but this is the latest until then.
00:23Exceptional drought here in the parts of North Florida and through Alma, Georgia,
00:28all the way up into areas near places like Statesboro and almost into Dothan, Alabama.
00:34Not a good situation there.
00:35We're dealing with very, very significant drought.
00:38Also up into areas near Mountain Home, Arkansas, near Jonesboro and Paragould.
00:41Big-time problems.
00:43Another nugget down into an area a little bit south of the hill country, portions of the hill country, parts
00:48of northern Alabama.
00:49So, exceptional drought for some.
00:52Have we made any progress in the past 30 days?
00:54Some have into Texas and Central and South Florida, but others have not, where we're still dealing with a significant
01:02shortcoming here.
01:03Much of the Carolinas into the interior southeast and all the way down to the Gulf.
01:07A big shortcoming.
01:08So, by the numbers, we picked out a few spots with a huge shortcoming looking at the first 27 days
01:14of the month.
01:15This takes us through Monday night, not including Tuesday's rain.
01:20We've had only a trace of rain in Charleston, South Carolina.
01:23Zero percent of average.
01:24Not good.
01:26In Atlanta, it's a 96 percent shortcoming.
01:29Four percent of the norm.
01:30Savannah, three percent of average for those 27 days.
01:33I know this is the dry season in these areas, but typically we still do a lot better than this.
01:37So far for the year, I'm going to get myself out of the way here, you can see that the
01:43rainfall deficit has been very substantial.
01:46Some areas like Tallahassee, this is a 10-inch shortcoming there between what we've actually seen and what we would
01:53typically see for the first almost four complete months of the year.
01:58A big shortcoming in all these places here.
02:01You take what we've had, multiply it by about four in Savannah, and then you'd be up around or maybe
02:06a little above what we've actually seen.
02:07So we're dealing with some severe storms.
02:09Just briefly, in progress, we're facing a number of severe threats, and I'm going to focus beyond this.
02:15This is just the short term.
02:16I don't want to miss acknowledging the moderate risk for severe storms here.
02:20That's two out of four of the AccuWeather four-tiered severe threat index.
02:23Many areas under tornado watches, severe thunderstorm watches adjacent to the moderate area as well.
02:28But let's take a look at what's going on.
02:30Instead of focusing on the short-term severe threat, I want to take us back to more drought relief conversations
02:36because we are making progress.
02:37So you can see some of the storms that are nasty this evening and tonight will make progress east through
02:42Atlanta
02:43and into an area near Charlotte.
02:45Now, once we get east to the mountains, the amount of rain that drops is going to be less significant,
02:49but at least we'll see something through Wednesday morning in Charlotte.
02:54Then the atmosphere recharges.
02:55The front sags a bit farther south, and that's going to set the table for storms to get suppressed.
03:02But still, we can benefit from this in South Georgia.
03:07Wednesday night into Thursday morning, some more showers and storms in the Gulf Coast states,
03:12and eventually early, early Thursday morning, really late Wednesday night, we see some of that into South Georgia.
03:16Here's the Europeans' depiction of that.
03:18That's good rainfall.
03:21We're going to show you amounts coming up in a little bit.
03:23Behind that, into Friday night and Saturday, look at this.
03:26Another wave benefiting Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and that's probably the strongest wave Saturday morning for rainfall.
03:36Look at Charleston, South Carolina getting in on it with the European model.
03:40Here's the GFS.
03:42It looks good.
03:43It's something.
03:44So decent drought relief is coming.
03:46Now, before we get into the amount of rainfall, I wanted to talk about instability.
03:51There is some risk of severe storms Wednesday into areas near the Gulf, and then again on Friday.
03:58You can see the Cape.
04:00This is convective, available, potential energy.
04:02The southward location to this front is going to really, really drop the potential for thunderstorms off the map for
04:09many areas in the interior southeast.
04:11Wednesday, the door is still open for some in Washington, D.C.
04:15It may not be dramatic, but areas west of D.C., near Richmond and maybe Lynchburg, Virginia, Roanoke, Raleigh, North
04:23Carolina.
04:23There's some instability, not impressive, but some that may bring potentially a gusty thunderstorm to some.
04:30And then also another area of concern is going to be this whole corridor down along the Gulf.
04:34So we do have a couple of graphics for that, taking it kind of in the order that I presented
04:39it to you.
04:40Here we have our Wednesday, Wednesday evening severe risk.
04:42It's a sub-risk, West Virginia, most of Virginia, including D.C., and most of central and northern North Carolina.
04:50Eastern Kentucky is in there as well.
04:52Another risk area, that's Friday.
04:54Let's get back to Wednesday.
04:56Texas and all the way down through southern parts of Alabama.
04:59So that's one time in which we could see some strong storms.
05:02And then the front is long gone from the mid-Atlantic state.
05:06That's way out of here.
05:07We're going to not see any severe risk into Virginia.
05:09But farther south, there's still potential, there's a wave that develops, and that could bring some strong storms to an
05:15area pancaked pretty close to the coast itself on Friday and Friday evening.
05:21So we do have a graphic for that.
05:23We're going to go with the sun risk.
05:25And there's the Wednesday graphic.
05:27Jumping ahead to Friday.
05:28It's a little more restrictive, and it's really hanging out near I-10.
05:31This is almost like maybe a February-type severe risk where we're clammed up against the Gulf Coast, and that'll
05:38be it.
05:39I wanted to jump back to the drought relief conversation now that we have the severe threat out of our
05:43way.
05:43The dew point is going to be very high.
05:45Even when it's not raining in south Georgia over the next three or four days, the fire spread is going
05:51to be much slower because of high dew point air.
05:54In fact, the fires may not spread much at all, even when it's not raining because we have a higher
05:59dew point, which is good news.
06:00The dew points do drop Thursday night to Friday morning in between the second and third wave.
06:05So we do get into drier air for a time Friday.
06:08It may be some risk of fire spread Friday.
06:11But as we ramp back up, look at how this rainfall behaves.
06:15If we take each of these next three waves, we have three to four inches of rain in areas between
06:22central and northern Alabama and Mississippi, and an inch-plus in south Georgia and parts of Florida.
06:29Here's the European.
06:31Similar general with a message, generally a similar message here.
06:34So what we are going to do with our forecast for now, again, this is not the end of our
06:38drought problems, but it's drought relief.
06:41One to two inches in the light green, two to four inches in the deep green.
06:44And we can count on a half inch to an inch in far south Georgia.
06:48That's your forecast feed.
13:36And now your time is having me for central time showers and storms.
13:38Some of these could be hailers into the hill country I should say, and then areas near
13:43maybe Tyler and Longview scattered thunderstorms, rumbles of thunder and some of that rain will
13:48be relatively heavy into parts of Louisiana, nosing into Mississippi.
13:53So that's 4 p.m. wednesday, let's go deeper into time.
13:55Beneficial rain, some drought relief in parts of the southeast.
13:58And then a new episode breaks out into the southern plains behind this.
14:01This is Thursday now, and we're also beginning to see some snow break out into the southern Rockies.
14:06But showers, periods of rain into Dallas, and some scattered thunderstorms a little farther southeast.
14:12We're going to get cooler and more stable in some of these areas to the north with just widespread rain
14:17and limited thunderstorm potential up into Oklahoma.
14:21And look at the snow taking over in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains there.
14:24Southern Colorado and northern New Mexico.
14:26So Thursday, a big swath of rain, cooler, almost chilly at night, into the interior mid-south.
14:33The interior south, or some call it the mid-south there, into areas like western Tennessee, Kentucky, parts of Missouri,
14:39Arkansas.
14:40Farther south, showers and storms.
14:42And again, we're dealing with some rain in central Texas and some beneficial rain into south Georgia
14:48where we've had some wildfires and so forth as well.
14:51So some of these areas will face some rain and thunderstorm potential.
14:55Others are going to be facing mainly just rain.
14:58A quick look at the rainfall amounts.
15:00One to two inches for some.
15:01Two to four inches farther west into central Texas and other areas as well.
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