Bob Peters Forecast

A basically stagnant weather pattern will continue for the next week or so, resulting in warm temperatures and little rainfall.

Two upper air high pressure ridges are over North America. One is centered over the Desert Southwest, and the second over the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea. East Texas is between the two centers, resulting in a slight weakness in the effects of the high. As a result, a few isolated showers have developed each of the past few afternoons, and are likely again Tuesday and Wednesday. The weakness is to the south and west of the Tyler area, and that is where the showers were Monday generally southwest of the IH-45 Corridor.

In addition, the sea breeze brought widely scattered late-day showers and thunderstorms about 75 miles inland of the Gulf Coast. For what few showers develop Tuesday and Wednesday, they are likely to be in generally the same places. Thursday may be a different story.

A minor disturbance was over the Four Corners area Monday afternoon. It is associated with a weak cold front extending from North Dakota into Northeastern New Mexico. The front will likely go stationary along the IH-40 Corridor over Central Oklahoma and Central Arkansas Thursday.

The front could be near enough to spread a few showers southward into East Texas Thursday afternoon.

By the weekend, the southwestern ridge should build overhead, shutting down the showers and keeping the warm temperatures. Monday’s major forecasting problem was how soon the effects of the wet latter half of June will wear off moist soils and green vegetation. These tend to limit the warming of temperatures. If rain does not fall widely and significantly this week, high readings should edge into the high 90s next week.

Monday saw clear to fair skies, with some fair-weather cumulus developing during the afternoon. Temperatures were near those of Sunday, and were near normal. Similar temperatures are expected Tuesday and Wednesday, with slightly lower readings forecast for Thursday with the chance for showers.

Low readings Monday morning were from near 70 in the east to the middle 70s in the west near the Dallas-Fort Worth urban heat island. Similar low readings are expected Tuesday through Thursday. Afternoon high readings were from near 90 to the middle 90s, with similar readings likely Tuesday and Wednesday and slightly lower high readings for Thursday.

Winds on Monday were southerly at 5-15 mph, with similar winds likely Tuesday and Wednesday, and slightly stronger winds because of the proximity of the cold front on Thursday.