Rain will be here for midweek but the new week begins dry with sunshine but another shot of chilly air comes in as high pressure builds in from the north. The air is not especially cool but it will keep temperatures in the 50s for the next 2 days. Sunshine should rule Monday and Tuesday we will see some sunshine giving way to arriving clouds ahead of the next weather system that has a good supply of moisture with it.
Wednesday with the strong front lifting up from the southwest and the high offshore we will have a decent southeast flow of very moist and warmer air to produce 1 to 2 inches of rain overall from this next weather system.
The precipitation map is for rainfall Wednesday evening which is on the low end of most forecast models. This is probably not a bad idea to be conservative given the drought pattern has tended to dominate. Weather systems have consistently underperformed the models though the last one worked out pretty even. We will lean toward higher gfs amounts given the tropical inflow and perhaps some of the remnant moisture of Hurricane Patricia getting involved though much of that will wind up going west of the Appalachians. That is why you see higher amounts in areas to the west of the coastal plain.
The GFS model 18z forecast rain map continues to produce 1 to 2 inch rain totals. It has been very consistent with this for the last 6 runs.
Weather conditions will improve Thursday and Friday with some sunshine returning though the air will turn chilly as another high pressure system builds in from the north. Models are pointing to another rain event beyond next weekend as low pressure approaches from the southwest. The longer term pattern looks to be dominated by the negative Atlantic Oscillation which will force weather systems further south. We also seem to have a more active Pacific jet bringing weather systems across the United States.
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