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Heavy Rain Over Texas and Louisiana

Soaking rainfall occurred over Texas the past few days. The eastern half of the state received widespread 1-inch rainfall with a sizeable area receiving 2.5 to nearly 5 inches. Heaviest rainfall occurred near Houston and near Waco.

A focused flow of heavy rain also occurred over Louisiana over the past 24-hours. Note the South-North alignment of the heaviest precipitation (dark yellow/red) along the central Louisiana coast. This focused direct streaming of moisture from the Gulf of Mexico resulted in rainfall near or in excess of 5 inches (red-shaded areas).

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More On The Way

The following image represents the current alignment of the jet stream. I’d like to point out a couple of interesting features. Pockets of energy are digging into the Southwest U.S. before rotating across the southern tier of the U.S. Two of these pulses of upper energy are indicated by the red “X.” The X over Texas is producing today’s rainfall with the next one, arriving soon behind, is entering the western U.S. These repeated systems will be associated with a surface low with a track of heavy rain extending northward along the Mississippi River Valley over the next 5 days.

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Change in AO Still Expected

Take a look at the above image. Cold air is pooling around the Arctic Vortex and will soon spill southward.

The Arctic Oscillation, currently in a positive phase, has activated the southern jet stream and has been responsible for the recent mild and wet weather. However, I’m still expecting a significant and abrupt shift into negative territory in the near future. This will bring significant changes to the nation’s weather that will likely last well into January. This AO phase change will likely result in: below-normal temperatures over much of the western and eventually central U.S., snow over the northern tier of the U.S., and drier-than-normal precipitation over the South and Southwest U.S. I’ll be covering this phase change in more detail in my Weekly Water Outlook.