Ugly Weekend...Again.

Damn SW upper flow continues to bring minor disturbances across the Gulf South and, despite the fact a cold front has brought us much drier air at the surface, the over running SW upper flow of moisture keeps a coming. We had many reports of "sleet/Ice pellets this evening south of Lake P., but NWS correctly pointed out it is GRAUPEL, more snow-like pellets. What's the difference? Ice pellets form when rain in a warm air layer several thousand feet above the surface falls into a freezing layer that turns the raindrops into ice pellets. Tonight's Graupel formed by a process called "evaporated cooling", when rain falls into a very dry layer of air and it rapidly cools. Don't see it happen very often when the surface temps are in the 50s! Computer models don't give us much rain Saturday, but I'm afraid they are not handling the SW flow once again.(remember last Saturday?) Saturday & Sunday will see little sunshine so temps may stay in the 50s. Warmer air is back by Monday and we'll be in the 70s all of next week with more rainy spells due to the, you guessed it, the SW upper flow.