Much Needed Rainfall In the Lower Mississippi River Valley Forecast

Fig. 1: NOAA/WPC 5-day U.S. precipitation outlook.

Discussion: NOAA/WPC trends wetter across the Mid-south U.S. in the latest U.S. 5-day precipitation forecast (Fig. 1). The outlook produces an emerging area of heavy rain in northeast Texas tomorrow which shifts to the Lower Mississippi River on Thursday and strengthens potentially causing several in. of rain. The heavy rain will raise low river levels of the southern Mississippi River. The wet pattern is likely to linger across the Mid-south and across the Southeast States into the weekend. On the back side of the widening wet weather area, an intense upper trough delivers a late week snowstorm to Western Texas (Fig. 2). The same upper low will deliver snow to New York/New England this weekend (Fig. 3).

Fig. 2-3: ECM 48-hour snowfall forecast for western Texas and New York/New England.

The U.S. gas population weight forecast shifts warmer. Next week and early December each feature below normal national heating demand (Fig. 4).

Fig. 4: U.S. gas population weight HDD forecast utilizing all models, their consensus and comparing with 24 hours ago and the 10-year/30-year climatology.