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GMZ532 Mississippi Sound- 932 Am Cst Fri Dec 8 2023
Rest of today..Southeast winds 5 to 10 knots. Waves around 2 feet. A slight chance of showers.
Tonight..Southeast winds 5 to 10 knots. Waves around 2 feet. A slight chance of rain in the evening.
Saturday..Southeast winds 5 to 10 knots. Waves around 2 feet. A slight chance of rain in the morning, then a chance of showers and Thunderstorms in the afternoon.
Saturday night..South winds 10 to 15 knots, becoming southwest 15 to 20 knots with gusts up to 25 knots after midnight. Waves 2 to 4 feet. A chance of Thunderstorms. Showers.
Sunday..Northwest winds 20 to 25 knots with gusts up to 30 knots. Waves 3 to 5 feet. A chance of showers and Thunderstorms in the morning.
Sunday night..Northwest winds 20 to 25 knots, becoming north 15 to 20 knots after midnight. Waves 3 to 5 feet.
Monday..North winds 15 to 20 knots, diminishing to 5 to 10 knots in the afternoon. Waves 2 to 3 feet.
Monday night..Northeast winds 5 to 10 knots, increasing to 10 to 15 knots after midnight. Waves 2 to 3 feet.
Tuesday..Northeast winds 10 to 15 knots. Waves 2 to 3 feet.
Tuesday night..Northeast winds 10 to 15 knots. Waves 2 to 3 feet.
winds and waves higher in and near Thunderstorms.

GMZ500 932 Am Cst Fri Dec 8 2023
Synopsis for pascagoula to atchafalaya river out 60 nm..
high pressure has pushed well east of the area and onshore flow has already gotten underway and will continue until the next cold front moves through overnight Saturday. The pressure gradient tomorrow may be tight enough to get some moderate southerly winds which could call for scs headlines but the main impacts will be post frontal Sunday. Very strong northwesterly to northerly winds will quickly develop after the front moves which should be early Sunday morning. Winds could approach gales or at least frequent gusts could and a gale watch may need to be issued today for most if not all coastal waters for Sunday. At the very least there will be scy headlines with gusts near 40 kt. High pressure slowly builds in through midweek with offshore winds and seas subsiding.

FXUS64 KLIX 081147 AFDLIX

Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service New Orleans LA 547 AM CST Fri Dec 8 2023

New SHORT TERM, LONG TERM, AVIATION, MARINE

SHORT TERM
(Today through Saturday)
Issued at 535 AM CST Fri Dec 8 2023

Moisture is starting to increase along with the clouds overnight.
Most locations actually hit their low early and temps started rising across a majority of the area before midnight. That said we still have a long way to go before we moisten up the airmass as the 00z sndg had a PW of only 0.48" and if we are going to see much of anything today it is going to be very very light (yes two verys) and most of what we see will be virga with maybe a few drops here and there reaching your windshield.

Today and through most of tomorrow it is all about the airmass recovering and over a 36 hour window we should be able to do so.
Again like we just mentioned the 00z sndg showed we are extremely dry with the airmass between h9 and h5 mostly in the 5-10% rh range so it is going to take some time to moisten up which is going to mainly be a top down process. Looking at current satellite and we see quite a bit of broad lift working across the region right now.
This is associated with a disturbance that appears to be a little stronger than what the models indicate when just looking at the hghts and wind field. Problem is the bulk of this lift is already over or east of us and the back end of the stronger lift is already in south-central LA and up along the MS/LA border. There is still some light lift behind it but the disturbance will work to the northeast and is expected to just merge with the main flow. After that it appears that our main mechanism to moisten up the column may come from isentropic lift which looking at the models is actually not very strong. So, with that its a struggle to buy into some of these 30 to near 40% pops the models want to populate some spots with but it only takes 0.01 to get that right and we can't rule that out. However, still feels like a disservice to show that high so have backed all PoPs off to nothing higher than 20% and isolated/slight chance at best for today. Today will also be warmer as LL temps continue to moderate and highs should get into the 70s for some areas. We have been a little cool with the highs the last two days and that could be the case again today so opted to increase a few locations a degree or two but the fly in the ointment is the cloud cover and possible rain. Even if we don't get much of anything rain wise there will be a good bit of cloud cover today and even the virga could keep things a little cooler than expected so it wouldn't be a surprise to see temps reverse course and actually be a few degrees cooler than the current fcst and most guidance.

A main protagonist is still developing over the western CONUS as coming onshore right now A LOT of energy has still not even come onshore yet which is evident looking at WV. This will develop and dig our L/W trough today which should be much more well defined by late afternoon and early evening. By 6z tonight the mid lvl jet core should finally be rounding the base of the trough and starting to lift to the northeast. That should put the brakes on the digging over or just east of the continental divide and then begin to cause the trough to start working east. However, there will still be a good bit of energy upstream and with the trough amplifying along with the behind it amplifying in response the trough will sharpen up but still remain positively tilted as we head into Saturday evening.
The main sfc low which is associated with strong disturbance working across the northern Plains and embedded in the L/W trough will deepen as it moves the western Great Lakes region and should start to occlude as it continues north into Canada Saturday night. A cold front will trail back to the SSW and begin to enter the Lower Ms Valley early Saturday but with the sfc low racing to the north and a sharpening but positive tilted trough the front will really begin to lose its support to race east. There will likely be another one or two waves/kinks as dynamics really start to kick in over the Mid and northern portions of the Lower MS Valley during the day and early evening but these waves will be well off to the north and also lift farther away with time. This has caused the timing to slow down with most of the activity likely now overnight and see no reason the cold front would surge east unless we can get robust convection to develop along it and then congeal into a line. That would likely aid the front in some respect as it should help with cold pooling but given the best support and dynamics look to lag back till later in the evening and also lift to our north and northeast This is seeming like a tall order. The cold front should begin to enter the CWA around midnight give or take a few hours and likely pushing off the coast and entering our coastal water just before sunrise.

So what are the severe chances with this system and how much rain could we see. Well the first aspect rainfall; luckily even though the timing is slowing down it doesn't mean the system is slowing down. It is just delayed from what we saw the last few days and once it moves into the area it will continue to do so with zero risk of the front hanging up, with southwest flow aloft, and moisture hanging around. What does this mean well we should have one shot at moderate to brief heavy rain and that will be with the front. There will likely be some light rain hanging back behind the front but we should quickly begin to dry out as h7 winds start to go westerly around 10/14z from west to east. Once we start to see mid lvl winds have more of a west component drier air will quickly move in and shut it down. The trough axis should move through much if not all of the area shortly after 18z. And low clouds will hang around until the LL thermal trough moves through which looks to be between 20z Sunday and 00z Monday. So with that you can see this will be moving and rain will not be a prolonged issue. The other issue with the potential for heavy rain is how potent the storms may or should we say may not be. If convection is not that potent then the rain efficiency does way down. Another ingredient that is not what we have seen with the last few systems is the moisture. Even with the recovery time that we have PWs will be NO WHERE near what we recently saw. We could approach 1.5" but that is on the high end and the deeper moisture looks to remain off shore. That will work against the rain efficiency as well. The one aspect that is working towards the rain efficiency is we will be under the RRQ of the jet at the same time we have the best chance for thunderstorms. We are anticipating thunderstorms with the front so you could still see a brief shot of locally heavy rain that could lead to ponding of water in low lying areas but the amount of time you see that kid of rain should be short enough to not cause any more problems than reduced vsbys, slick roads, and maybe some decent puddles otherwise most of the rain should not have any serious impacts from the rain.

As for the severe aspect this too is on the low end. Most of the area is under a MRGL risk (lvl 1 of 5) but there is a SLGT risk (lvl 2/5) in far southwestern MS and this is the one area that may have just enough support for one or two potent storms, especially if storms can develop over southwest LA and become strong before moving into southwest MS. Winds will quickly become unidirectional and could be that way by late afternoon. SRH could be below 150 m2/s2 at both 0-1 and 0-3 possibly even below 100 as the sfc winds become more southwesterly ahead of the front. 0-6km bulk shear ahead and with the front may reach 40kt and that would be enough for multicellular but likely not quite enough for any substantial organization. The bulk shear drastically increase behind the front but then so do the winds post frontal and that will be a big impact issue for the marine interests. Another aspect that is not optimal is the LL convergence. LL winds will respond to the increasing lift and a LL jet will develop but the core could be in northern MS or even the TN valley by 00z. This has our area on the southern tip of the LL jet and thus mostly LL divergence which is not favorable for strong/severe storms or heavy rain. In fact the h85 front which the last few days seemed much sharper and either right behind the sfc front or almost in lock-step with it doesn't look as pronounced now and lagging much farther back. All of this is not painting a great chance for severe weather or heavy rain. That said there is one thing to not ignore and that is the dynamics are still impressive.
The bulk of the lift may be well north of the area but we will see a significant cool down in the mid lvls as hghts fall. Hghts could fall 5 to 6 dm from 18z to 6z and h5 temps could drop down to as much as -14C. With this there will be some instability and decent mid lvl lapse rates around 6.5 to 6.7 C/km. So if there is one thing that may have a better chance of developing it could be small to minimal severe hail. As for the threat of tornadoes and and strong winds. It is hard to EVER COMPLETELY rule out tornadoes down here as we even saw last Friday but the risk of those two seem to be minimal at best. Hail appears to have the greatest potential due to the mid lvl temps. /CAB/

LONG TERM
(Saturday night through Thursday)
Issued at 535 AM CST Fri Dec 8 2023

Again models overall seem to be in agreement with the sensible weather its just how we get there that has been a little inconsistent. Latest medium range models actually seem to be in better agreement heading into the middle and latter portions of the work week. This cold front Saturday should be the strongest cold front this season so far but most of the colder air does get shunted off to the east. That said the NBM again appears to be suffering with respect to morning lows. Monday is a little more of a question as there are a few things that could really hurt the cooling overnight however, Tuesday morning does seem to be a much more optimal setup and the NBM incessantly likes to have a deterministic value way above the available MOS guidance and in most locations way above its members as it is easily warmer than the 90th percentile. It is mainly lows and not highs that continue to have the greatest problem and that has been well documented over the last few weeks especially some of the more known cool spots.

Sunday will be quite brisk. The high will occur at sunrise for most if not all of the CWA as the cold front is entering the coastal waters. strong CAA will be occuring most of the day and strong northwesterly winds will be in place. The winds from the sfc to h85 will be almost unidirectional and with strong CAA aiding in downward momentum transport that along with the unidirectional winds will aid in maximizing the wind gust potential, especially coming off the Lake and right around the coast. Sfc pressure rises will be pretty good too over a 6 hours time frame and this will help the sustained winds. A wind advisory may be needed for areas along and south of the tidal lakes and possibly right along the immediate MS and SELA coast. We will likely cool through much of the day as ll temps drop.
H85 temps could really tick down initially as some recent model guidance shows h85 temps around 1C approaching southwest MS. That is pretty darn chilly and would be the coldest h85 temp we have seen so far this season. That said the mid lvl flow quickly become zonal late Monday and we could see a weak disturbance in the subtropics try to work into the area however as the next system digs over the western CONUS the pattern will amplify with ridging across FL and stretching to the WNW into the southern Plains. A deep cut off low is progged to develop around the 4 corners by mid-week and this would also help that wave to pull more to the north over the western Gulf and keep it west of our area and thus rain free through midweek. /CAB/

AVIATION
(12Z TAFS)
Issued at 535 AM CST Fri Dec 8 2023

Cloud cover will increas through the morning but it is mid and upper lvl clouds and should provide no impacts. We will slowly moisten up through the day with possibly a few light showers today but most of what we see out there today will likely be virga. With this VFR conditions should persist through the night if not into tomorrow. The only question is could there be some light fog tomorrow morning a lot will depend on how much recovery we cna see in the boundary layer over the next 18 hours but overall right now there should be no imapcts through at least 06z tonight. /CAB/

MARINE
Issued at 535 AM CST Fri Dec 8 2023

Benign conditions for another 24 to 30 hours will continue. High pressure has pushed well off to the east and we are firmly in onshore flow. Winds will remain on the light to moderate side today and through tomorrow morning. As a cold from moves towards the region tomorrow winds may start to respond a little with possibly some SCS headlines ahead of the front but the big impact will be post frontal. This is the first real bonafide cold front of the season with strong cold air advection on the back side and winds from the sfc to about 5000' up ranging from 15 to 40 maybe 45kt. These winds will become unidirectional late tomorrow morning and through the day. This will occur at the same time as strong h85 and h7 cold air advection is hitting along with 6hr sfc pressure rises of 3 to 6 mb. With this we should see wind gusts around 35 to 40kts and they could even peak out around 45kt. These wind gusts will be frequent getting close to Gale conditions over the open waters at the least but possibly all of the waters. It is still a tad early and borderline but a Gale watch may be needed later today. At the least we will eventually have headlines out wiill it be a combo of SCY and GLA/W or a strongly worder SCY.
Winds should begin to slack off Moinday but especially as we head into the middle of the week. /CAB/

PRELIMINARY POINT TEMPS/POPS
MCB 71 58 77 45 / 20 30 60 100 BTR 72 60 80 48 / 20 20 50 90 ASD 71 58 79 49 / 20 10 30 90 MSY 70 61 80 52 / 20 10 30 90 GPT 69 59 74 50 / 10 10 40 90 PQL 73 59 77 52 / 10 20 40 90

LIX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES
LA...None.
GM...None.
MS...None.
GM...None.

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Gulfport
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Fri -- 02:21 AM CST     Moonrise
Fri -- 06:03 AM CST     0.64 feet Low Tide
Fri -- 06:40 AM CST     Sunrise
Fri -- 01:58 PM CST     Moonset
Fri -- 04:55 PM CST     Sunset
Fri -- 08:35 PM CST     1.41 feet High Tide
Tide / Current data from XTide NOT FOR NAVIGATION

Gulfport, Gulfport Harbor, Mississippi, Tide feet

Cat Island (West Point)
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Fri -- 02:22 AM CST     Moonrise
Fri -- 06:12 AM CST     0.20 feet Low Tide
Fri -- 06:40 AM CST     Sunrise
Fri -- 01:58 PM CST     Moonset
Fri -- 04:56 PM CST     Sunset
Fri -- 07:20 PM CST     1.26 feet High Tide
Tide / Current data from XTide NOT FOR NAVIGATION

Cat Island (West Point), Mississippi, Tide feet

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