Heading Back Into Another Warm Spell...

I've mentioned several times that the upper air pattern since back in late November has had the main storm track/upper trough along the West coast with a ridge over the Southeast.  That has brought rain out west, but kept us mostly warm & dry with a couple of exceptions.

There's plenty of super cold (40-45 below zero) over Alaska & northern Canada, but it's blocked from coming southward by the upper flow.

Notice how the southern states from Arizona to the Carolinas are very mild and that will continue for the next 3-4 days.  There will be a cold front approach us by Saturday increasing our rain chances and bringing a brief spell of colder weather before we see yet another warm up for Christmas.

Since we only need less than a half inch of rain to move into the # 2 spot, I suspect we could do it this weekend.  We would need over 17" during the last 2 weeks of this month (not gonna happen) to become # 1 and the odds are, thankfully,  not very good.

We'll see highs 75-80 for the rest of this week with high dew points indicating deep low level moisture that should result in daily morning fog.

Satellite views show the fog/low clouds lingered over the Lake & west of NOLA where a helicopter crashed over the Spillway.  Look for more dense fog later tonight into early Wednesday morning.   Finally...

We have all seen the horrific videos of the tornado damage from last Friday.   Major damage was done to what appeared to be very sturdy buildings.  It's obvious these were major (EF 3+) tornadoes.  Was watching Jim Cantore on TWC this morning talking about building back stronger and every home having a "safe room" to go to as a last resort.   My youngest son lives in Edmond, OK and installed a safe room in his garage 2 years ago after the birth of his son.   It's a steel box (8 x 3') bolted to the concrete frame and cost $ 4,500.  An in ground structure would cost $3-4 K.  Sounds like a lot of money, but spread out over a 5-10 year home equity loan, and it's a no brainer.  During that interview, a spokesperson with the NWS said he was amazed by the "shoddy workmanship" of many structures.   We can't just build back the same way or the next storm will have the same results.  I'm hoping as we recover from Ida's damages, we don't just build back, but build back stronger (more hurricane clips and straps & shutters) in an effort to limit the damages when the next storm comes.  Stay tuned!