Sunday Night Extravaganza

Let's take some topics one by one....

• Gabrielle - This system looks to have behaved pretty much as-forecasted with some winds gusts over 50mph in the Outer Banks and some good amounts of rain. Otherwise, this certainly was not a catastrophic system, and the lingering rain and winds in the Outer Banks tonight should end by Monday morning.
  
• Elsewhere in the tropics, there are two tropical waves that have my eye. One is northeast of the Windwards and another is southwest of the Cape Verde Islands. Both tropical waves have the potential to slowly develop, and we will be closely watching both of them.
  
• Some much-needed rain - A cold front will drop in here from the northwest Wednesday and stall out for the next few days. That means a good chance for some showers and storms on a daily basis Wednesday through Saturday. In fact, these are the best rain chances over a multiple day period I remember seeing in a long time around here.
• Taste of Fall - A Canadian cold front will sweep through here Saturday, and I think it will usher in a brief period of much cooler temperatures. At this point, I think we can expect a couple of days with highs in the 70s and lows probably in the 50s. In fact, I have a high of 77 with a mostly sunny sky for Sunday in the current 7-day.
• The rest of September - This is the time of year when I always get my forecasting juices really flowing again. No doubt about it, to me summertime weather is the least exciting to forecast (hurricanes aside), and it is easy to slip into a forecasting and broadcasting funk during the dog days of summer. How many different ways can you say "heat and drought?" But, this is the time of year when airmass changes are in the offing, and we begin to make that slow transition from Summer to Winter. At any rate, after the nice shot of cooler temperatures we will see about a week from now, I think much of the rest of September will be warm. I think odds are we will see some sort of Southeast U.S. or western Atlantic ridge rear its ugly head again, and the second half of the month could definitely be a warm one.
  
• College Football - Man, I love football. Mississippi State took care of Tulane last night 38-17 in the Superdome. MSU held Tulane to 6 yards of total offense in the second half and no first downs....one of the most dominating halves of football I can remember. And, after I saw how LSU handled VT, I don't feel quite as bad about the whipping LSU gave us in Week 1. Next up....Auburn on the Plains.
  
• NFL Football - The Panthers won today in much the same fashion as MSU did last night. The teams played even in the first half, then Carolina took over in the second half. Nice win for the team there...off on the right foot for sure.
  

Not a whole lot of out of the ordinary activities in the line-up for us this week. I have some grass that absolutely needs to be cut, but I will have a hard time bringing myself to do it knowing that cooler weather is just around the corner. We will see.

Everyone have a great week.