Gotta Get Rid Of The Uglies...

Several years ago one of my neighbors was Rick Maia, owner of LAS Windows & Shutters.  One of his commercials talked about getting rid of the "Uglies" on your house.  Well, we need to get rid of our weather uglies as we have been in this stretch of rainy weather for 5+ days.  As I mentioned yesterday, we are on track to be the wettest April ever out at MSY.  As it currently stands at 2 PM, we have leaped into the top 5 and can easily jump to number 2 by days end.

As of 2 PM, our monthly total is 12.60" with moderate to heavy rain still falling. We are 3.52" short of the all time wettest with 2 weeks left in April.   Radar is showing a cluster of storms over us with yet another coming off the Texas coast.  This wet pattern is tied into the upper air flow that is stalled due to an "Omega Block".  I can show you that with the 500 mb (18,000') flow charts.

The top graphic is the colorized version with the bottom 2 the more typical views that has an upper high centered just west of Seattle with a trough extending westward from a strong low off the East Coast.  That leaves a flat west to east flow over us that has stalled a frontal boundary just to our south.

Satellite views show the results.  It's sunny, warm and nice from California up into western  & central Canada while it's cloudy, cool and wet east of the Rockies.   The current disturbance moving off the Texas coast should finally drag the front boundary far enough into the Gulf that we dry out for Sunday-Tuesday.

Obviously, all this rain has local rivers very high, but it does not affect the levels of the Mississippi which crested yesterday.  All gages up river to Cairo, IL. are falling so we should not have to worry about the Corps opening the Spillway this year...UNLESS, during the next 2-3 weeks excessive rains fall over the Ohio & upper Mississippi River basins.  Right now, models do not show that happening.

Finally, several of you have asked me to comment on the stormy weather that caused the topping of the jack up rig off of Port Fourchon on Tuesday.  Since I was not here (in Destin) and didn't have my computer on for 3 days, I really don't know what happened.  I've read and seen the videos talking about a "wake Low" and you can google that to see what it is.   Obviously this is a tragic situation and it really doesn't matter what caused the strong winds.  The most important takeaway is the burst of winds were not forecasted so the Captain and fellow sailors were caught by surprise.   It's easy to "Monday morning quarterback", and I'm sure the lawyers will have a field day.  I just pray for those who lost loved ones.   Stay tuned!