9/27 - 2pm - MSU Forecast

The rain is over and MSU is beginning to dry out. The ground is still wet and there are still a few puddles around campus, but everything should have time to dry up this week. There will not be a drop of rain until Friday:


The storms on Friday may pack a bit of a punch, but I'm not sure if we'll see any severe weather yet. Regardless, a trough settling into the Eastern US early this week will allow temperatures and humidity to drop considerably. This lack of humidity will allow lows to get into the 40's on Monday and Tuesday night. If you can stand the cool evening temperatures, this should be a very pleasant week!

9/24 - 9pm - ...And the Rain Continues!

We may have missed most of the rain today, but there's still a good chance that the wet stuff could return tomorrow and Saturday. To get the word out about the rain this Saturday (during the MSU vs. LSU home football game), I made a little cartoon and put it on my dorm room door:


I'm not a big South Park fan, but these cartoons on my door are a great way to get the word out in my residence hall about the weather! Here's one that I put up yesterday:


During this final round of rain tomorrow and Saturday, we could pick up over an inch according to the HPC:

Looks like we could have highs in the lower 80's/upper 70's next week as a trough sets up around the eastern part of the nation. Here comes the cool air!

9/21 - 7:45pm - Rain, Rain, Rain!

Everyone in the Southeast is sick of rain after the last few days. From Louisville to Starkville, MS to Atlanta, flooding problems, heavy rain, and headaches have been all too common! Here's a video I shot this afternoon of some students here at MSU using skimboards in some of the minor flooding that occurred outside my residence hall:



We've had quite a bit of rain here at MSU, but flooding has really not been an issue. The rain in Atlanta over the past few days became deadly today as flooding caused deaths. Up to 20 inches of rain has fallen in some parts of Georgia. More rain is possible tomorrow around the Southeast, so there could be more flooding to come.
[11alive.com - Atlanta]

9/20 - 2pm - MSU Forecast

The rain last week may have been scattered, but MSU certainly got the brunt of it. The storm that came through on Friday evening turned the Drill Field into a swamp for a few hours and made it difficult to get around campus without stepping into a deep puddle. That's a lot of rain! Unfortunately, this week's forecast looks similar to last week's in terms of rain. Again, this won't be an all-day thing this week, but any scattered storm that comes through could put down some heavy rain:


According to the Hydrometeorological Prediction Center (HPC), we could see over two inches of rain during the next five days:


The GFS model is beginning to show cooler air filtering into the country starting in a couple weeks. Obviously this is a long way out, so pinpointing anything at the moment is not possible. Just be ready for temperatures to drop sometime during the first couple weeks in October. Fall starts on Tuesday, so we should begin to see cooler temperatures soon, like the GFS is hinting at.

9/17 - 10:30am - Severe Storms Symposium

The 8th annual Southeast Severe Storms Symposium starts today on the MSU campus. This event, sponsored by the East Mississippi Chapter of the NWA and AMS, will feature broadcast and operational meteorology speakers from around the country. Today is the broadcaster's workshop and will include presentations from Dave Freeman of KSN in Wichita, Kansas and Reynolds Wolf of CNN in Atlanta. Tomorrow's speakers include meteorologists from National Weather Service offices in Jackson, Memphis, Morristown, Birmingham, and Huntsville who will speak on a wide range of historical severe weather events, technology, and phenomena. I'll be there for a few presentations today and for a good portion of tomorrow's. To see the complete agenda, click here.

Severe weather (ironically) canceled the symposium in March of this year, but it doesn't look like that will happen again. A few storms will be around the Starkville area this afternoon, and daily storm chances will continue through the weekend.

9/13 - 2pm - MSU Forecast

What a soggy end to the weekend! A very pronounced low pressure system will be making its way through the Mississippi Valley over the next couple of days, resulting in multiple rounds of rain and thunderstorms through mid week. Don't expect any severe weather from this system, but have those umbrellas ready:


We should see another round of rain this afternoon, which should be much heavier than the rain we saw this morning. We could have over three inches of rain by the time this is all said and done later this week according to the Hydorometeorological Prediction Center (HPC):

Stay dry out there!

9/9 - 9:30pm - Cool Thunderstorm at MSU

A mean-looking thunderstorm neared campus today as I was (ironically) heading to an American Meteorological Society/National Weather Association meeting this afternoon. I ran back to my room and grabbed my camera because it had quite a nice structure to it. At its peak, the storm put down small hail north of campus and a brief heavy downpour. By the time it actually reached MSU, the storm was all but gone. I was able to take some video of the neat cloud formations and a lightning strike with my residence hall in the foreground:



Be sure to click the "HD" and full-screen buttons to see the storm in 720p high definition.

Although nothing severe is expected, more storms are possible through the weekend here in Mississippi, so I'll be sure to have my camera ready if anything interesting happens.

Hurricane Fred is still spinning around far out in the Atlantic, and it is not expected to pose any threat to land. Other than that, not much weather news around the nation today.

9/7 - 7:30pm - Back in Starkville

After a nice Labor Day weekend in Louisville, I'm back and ready for action at Mississippi State University!

Here's the MSU forecast for this week:


Tropical Depression Seven has formed off the eastern coast of Africa, but it will make an immediate turn back towards the Atlantic before it goes anywhere near the United States. Other than that, the tropics are pretty quiet!

9/4 - 11am - Louisville!

After 27 days at Mississippi State University, I'm going home to Louisville tonight for the Labor Day weekend. It'll also be nice to get a break from the humidity here in Starkville, even though it's not that hot this week. Just to give you an idea, the dewpoint in Starkville is 66F right now and the dewpoint in Louisville is 59F. The higher the dewpoint, the higher the humidity is (relative to air temperature).

Here's the Louisville forecast from the NWS for this weekend:

Saturday: Partly sunny, with a high near 84. East wind between 3 and 7 mph.

Saturday Night: Mostly cloudy, with a low around 64. East wind around 5 mph.

Sunday: A 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 84. East wind around 7 mph.

Sunday Night: A 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 64.

Labor Day: A 40 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 82.

Not too bad, but hopefully the rain holds off on Sunday and Labor Day!

9/1 - 10am - Cool Weather, Jimena, Wildfires, Tropics

Lots of stuff to cover today, but let's start with Starkville. It looks like we're in the clear for rain until this weekend, and even then those rain chances will remain quite low. Highs should hover in the mid 80's for the rest of the week with a bit of a temperature-spike for Labor Day.

Hurricane Jimena in the Pacific is getting ready to hit Baja California as a major storm. Winds are at 155mph right now, which is on the edge between a category 4 and 5:


Residents and visitors alike are fleeing the area ahead of Jimena's landfall. Click here to read more.


Up the coast from Jimena on the U.S. side of the border is a massive wildfire just 15 miles north of Los Angeles. Firefighters are hoping that temperatures drop from the 100's into the 90's today with onshore flow present. Despite burning 50 structures so far and growing quite a bit overnight, there's a chance that firefighters may be able to get a better handle on this blaze today.
[L.A. Times]

A vigorous tropical wave with a broad area of low pressure east of the Lesser Antilles in the Atlantic organized quite a bit overnight. There's still no good center of circulation with this storm, but it's certainly looking like a well-defined tropical feature on satellite. NOAA is sending out a weather reconnaissance aircraft to investigate this area of disturbed weather today, so we'll have to see if the information that it brings back influences the next outlook from the National Hurricane Center.