Our Persistent Pattern, Explained | Forecast Update 5.27.26

Added: 2026-05-28

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[00:00:43]I know that this pattern has been the same thing over and over again. Uh it's probably becoming exhausting trying to keep up with all of this. Uh I I trust me, I get it. I understand and I sympathize. Uh, and I want to attempt at least to kind of show you um what this is all where this is all coming from.

[00:01:03]Why is it that, you know, it seems like we're just stuck in this pattern.

[00:01:07]There's been a lot of talk about this omega block that's coming in. And usually an omega block pattern means that we don't get any rain. It's just hot for a long time. And it's that persistent ridge that we see. Uh, so why isn't that happening here? Well, I want to talk about that a little bit. Uh, and again, try to show you. I I posted a short time ago on the page. I kind of feel like the guy in the conspiracy meme uh that's going crazy with the whole big board and all the, you know, all the lines drawn and everything. Uh, it kind of feels that way. Now, storms are possible again this afternoon.

[00:01:40]And, you know, I mean, it's just kind of going to be that way. We have a few of these storms over in Kaufman and Vanzant counties here. Uh, and I think we will see more of that. And of course earlier this morning and we zoomed this out, this little uh misoscale convective vortex, this little disturbance kind of came out of the storms that we saw last night and we got more rain overnight than I expected us to get because we saw this kind of pause kind of slow down. Um there was the other uh vortex, you know, over in the panhandle and we were kind of on the side of that where we were getting all of this moving northward and really it was moving eastward until it kind of slowed down and moved northward and became a convective vortex all of its own. And that kind of slowed down and kept the rain kind of training over us overnight. Um, so that's just one way that these storms are so hard to predict sometimes because they take on different modes and those different modes allow for uh changes in movement, changes in trajectory, uh changes in speed, all those things that can contribute to this forecast. Now, the first thing I want to show you because this will matter when I show you the upper levels of the atmosphere. Let's show the lower levels of the atmosphere. Let's show the surface winds. And there are a couple of things to show you. Now, obviously, you see that spin uh from the little storm we had this morning. And of course, on the back side of that, we have these winds coming in from uh the north. Now, south of us, you can see quite a bit of convection down on the coast and out in the Gulf. But what you normally will see here, and you can still kind of see here um under all of this, you see winds that are moving northward. And this is where we get all of this Gulf moisture. So at the surface here closer to the ground, we have all of this Gulf moisture rushing in. And you can still kind of see that u you know those Gulf winds kind of pushing these clouds up northward.

[00:03:45]But we get that Gulf moisture. That's where we get all of this humidity, right? Uh that's where all of this humid air comes from that we're dealing with every day. So just keep that in mind. at the surface. Southerntherly winds are bringing rich Gulf moisture into our area. So, that is in place. Now, we're also warm. Warm air rises. Warm air, you know, causes lift. But yes, we also do have u to a degree. Let's get the temperatures up here in those isobars.

[00:04:14]We also do have this pattern developing.

[00:04:17]And you can see this where they call it an omega pattern. Why do they call it that? Well, you have one low pressure system here. You have one low pressure system up here and in between you get what looks like the Greek letter omega.

[00:04:31]And over time this pattern is going to sort of set in and settle in and kind of become better defined over time. Uh and you can really see it set in right about here. And this is what this is looking at Friday night. Uh and again you can see that pattern there. And a lot of the time for us at least this means that we see the ridge better defined across our area really sets in and we get hot, we get dry, we can't get rain. But the thing is our proximity to this upper level low right here that's just going to sit there. You see the way the flow is going. This blows all of these little disturbances in.

[00:05:18]That's one thing to pay attention to.

[00:05:21]Um, so you know, all of these little waves, these little disturbances just get lined up and just get blown in here from this this track and that's Friday.

[00:05:31]Well, you can see that it pretty much stays the same. Um, you can see also if you pay attention, you see this little dip here. That is one of those disturbances. That's one of those little um waves that gets blown in. And what happens when they come in? Well, you see the cooler little pockets of cooler air.

[00:05:48]That's rain cooled air. That is those storms that get blown up. And so as this this pattern persists and it's going to be there for a while, you can see even way back here. Look at that. You can see one wave there. Uh you can see another one, you know, there. So just this persistent pattern. This is looking at June 1st. Um of more of these things riding these winds in. Now, the other part of this, if we kind of go back a little bit, um, and look more currently, especially right where was that? It was right.

[00:06:23]There's a good picture of it right here.

[00:06:25]Um, these winds, you can see obviously there's a little wave there. They're blowing in and you have winds going this way, but then look at this. These winds going this way, we're caught in the middle. That causes lift. That causes sort of an empty space. We've talked about this before. An empty space in the upper levels here. And where there's that void, air lifts to fill that void in the upper levels of the atmosphere. So that's lifting all that Gulf moisture we have at the surface that provides the lift.

[00:06:57]That condenses when the air cools higher up. Those clouds build. That's where we get our storms. And it happens usually in the afternoon because we have daytime heating to increase that lift, right? Uh because warm air rises. So all of those things coming together make daily storm chances and the fact that this is such a persistent pattern that's just going to sit there. That is why we have storms possible over the next several days. The other piece of it too, and we've talked about this, u I I feel like ad nauseium, but the fact that we don't have the upper level support. We have the lower jetream down here, the upper jetream there. Um, and we're kind of without a stronger flow to determine the smaller features, where these smaller disturbances go, how fast they're moving, those kinds of things. we are without um a a strong jetream flow.

[00:07:54]They'll they'll move the disturbances in, but there's not quite the dynamics in place to be able to say, "Hey, it's going to be here at this time." Uh, and it's going to track here. We don't have all of that upper level support to kind of govern these things in a more predictable way. So, that's why it's tough to say when and where and what the coverage is going to be. And then you have those micro scale uh features like those little outflow boundaries that these storms push through that a day with three or four storms, well each one of those pushes an outflow boundary.

[00:08:27]Those create storms. Well, you just multiplied the storm coverage very very quickly. So all of those things we have uh the upper levels we have the you know creating that that uh omega pattern which gets locked in and locks us into that constant parade of disturbances. We have the lower levels where we have all of the Gulf moisture moving in and the mid levels which is where all these disturbances are coming through. So there's so many uh different dynamics in place and then you have the miniature features which is the alpha boundaries and things all of these variables all at work all at play. That's why the forecast can be tough. We can tell you that storms are possible but it's tough to tell you if that disturbance is going to get here before lunch or maybe after dinner or it's just the smaller the features, the less predictable they are.

[00:09:20]Uh and uh so there's so much going on and that's why I can be fairly certain of storms but that's about it and you know it's just it's just not looking like um we are looking at a uh very predictable pattern the it's it's not a predict what's the best way to say this? It it's hard to communicate it sometimes. It's not a predictable pattern at ground level far ahead. We can tell you that the the the pattern is in place to send storms our way and that they may pop up, but I can't tell you where or when they're going to be because where they pop up is largely random. We're not going to see with a pattern like this, we're not going to see one long line of storms, you know, that's going to flow in and and it's going to be here at this time and here at this time. Hey, this big line of storms is moving 35 miles per hour, so it's going to be here at this time and so on and so forth. That's not what we have. We don't have cold fronts blowing in that, you know, I can time out a trajectory. It's just these little disturbances that will create storms, little pop-up storms with the heating as they go.

[00:10:33]So, that's what we're dealing with here.

[00:10:35]That's the the the the forecast dynamics, all of the different variables in place that make it hard to forecast.

[00:10:42]So, uh, all of that is why the forecast looks like this. Uh, today I think that for the most part, we we haven't really seen too many storms in our area. Um, and you know, the the the storms that pop up, we're kind of in a a fairly stable air mass. And for the most part, we're most of us are on kind of the eastern side now. really more of the uh the southeastern side of that storm complex. So, the east side of it brings in more sinking air. That's why on a miniature complex like this, the east side doesn't really get as much rain.

[00:11:21]It's the same thing with um larger features. When you get a low pressure system, um when we're behind the cold front, higher pressure is and sinking air is on the back side of that low pressure system. So, anytime you're on that, that's also you talk about hurricanes. That's one reason why um there's not as much storm activity on the east side of a hurricane, the north flow side of a hurricane than there is on the southerntherly flow because the southerntherly flow is pulling in more moisture, more unstable, warm air. The other side bringing in more stable air, sinking air on the other side. So, being on the east side of that complex this morning gave us more sinking air. So, the storm chances are not as great.

[00:11:58]Tomorrow though, it looks like we get another one of those disturbances coming in that uh you know will give us better chances of storms, more lift, that kind of thing. And by the way, in addition to the lift that we're getting from that split in the atmosphere, those disturbances are little, they're basically like pockets of lift. That's what they are. Uh and so that that adds to the lift, adds to uh the convection.

[00:12:22]So that's why they just kind of pop up storms everywhere because that's a little pocket of it's like a wave almost. Uh you can and we talk about them as waves in the atmosphere. We that is a term that we use because you think about a wave and it's there and as it travels it lifts the water. Well, it's little areas little waves of lift in the atmosphere. So from Friday on here, Friday looks more tranquil at this point. Uh because I think we're kind of in between systems and Evan Andrews explained that too. Uh that just kind of looks like the timing. But the farther out we get, the harder it is to say, "Oh, we've got a wave coming in this day or at this time." We're pretty sure we're going to get more of them just because of the upper level setup that is set to bring more our way. But predicting the timing is tough. So, from Saturday on, um, I really just kind of have for Saturday and Sunday, I have a 30% chance here. Monday and Tuesday, I have a 20% chance. There's not a huge difference in that. Saturday, Sunday, it looks like we'll probably have another disturbance coming through. Monday and Tuesday is harder to predict. We're probably around the same pattern. If anything, um, Monday, Tuesday, it's just harder to predict when we will have storms coming through. So, my confidence is lower. Not saying that the coverage of storms is lower from Monday, Tuesday, just the confidence in those details is lower. So, it's a lower chance overall.

[00:13:48]So, that's where the forecast is. It's not an easy one to explain. It's complicated. And the headline, if you looked at the forecast this morning on the the page, the website southmete.com, it was blah blah storm chances blah blah. And then the lead below that, storm chances continue. I'm running out of clever ways to say it. Um, I, you know, I've worked in news and I I like to come up with, um, sort of clever headlines and leads and things like that. I'm running out of clever ways to say it. I mean, it's just, it's going to be the same thing for quite a while. Uh, the nice thing is that we will probably be looking at below average temperatures next week. Now, we talked about that outlook I showed you where it's the big blue blob over Texas, and there are a lot of places that are kind of trying to sell that as a big cool down. Average is 88 89 degrees right now. Below average is 85 86. It's not a it's not a huge drop. Um, so that's what we're seeing across our area. That's what we are looking at. And I know it's frustrating. I know that, you know, I trust me, I want to get gutters installed, but looking at the forecast, I can't tell you when it's going to be the weather's going to be nice enough. Sure, I've got some roof things I got to work out with that, too.

[00:15:05]But, you know, it's hard for me to schedule anything because I have to be kind of on call for these storms. And severe weather is not really expected, but as we've seen the last few days, you can have these storms, especially with those outflow boundaries. They get a big rush of lift all of a sudden, and that pushes them way up in the atmosphere, gets some hail, gets some strong winds, especially as those storms are collapsing. You get those down bursts, um, which is really kind of a one-two punch. So, you get the lift that creates the hail, and then they kind of run out of that upper air support, get smooshed, um, or run out of that lift, right? that short-lived um extra lift and then they get pushed downwards. That's where you get the downburst winds, so on and so forth. So, severe storms are not likely, but the stronger storms cannot be ruled out. Um so, that uh I know that's a lot. That's drinking water from a fire hose, but I wanted to at least give you a chance to see the complex why because there is no simple why. It's here's the the you know, all of the different variables in place. It also helps you to understand why the forecasting is so tough right now. It's not that we don't know what we're doing. We absolutely know what we're doing. It's because we know all of these things that we can tell you that it's uncertain. Um, so stay tuned to South Metro Weather. I'm going to be covering any of these storms that pop up, you know, as they're going on. Um, and just assume that each afternoon there's a few storms possible. That's the best I can tell you right now because as long as we're in this pattern and we have these little waves, these little disturbances coming through, uh, storms will be possible. So, hang with us. Stay tuned. Be prepared for storms as this pattern continues and sticks around for a while here in North Central Texas.