Issued: 2pm on Friday, March 24th 2023
Technical Forecast Discussion
Short Term (Friday 3-24-23 through Monday 3-27-23)
A deep longwave troughing pattern out west will continue to contribute to excessive rainfall across southeast Ohio Friday through Saturday as a surface stationary front stalls out. A few isolated thunderstorms are possible as well, which will bring the heaviest rainfall and gusty winds with any that do develop. Due to the excessive rainfall, a flood watch is in place for much of the region until Saturday at 2pm EDT, and a flood warning is in place specifically for Athens and Vinton counties until Friday at 4:15pm EDT. Some roads have already been closed off due to flash flooding imminently occurring, hence why these counties were upgraded to a warning.
Friday night, the low pressure associated with this system will lift northeast into the Great Lakes region, lifting the stationary front north as a warm front. This front will rebound temperatures back into the 70s for Saturday after a drop in temperatures the previous day, but showers and thunderstorms will still continue as a cold front will not be far behind. This cold front is anticipated to pass through the region Saturday afternoon, and after the passage, will finally reprieve the area of precipitation chances. As a pressure gradient tightens, winds will additionally be rather gusty right along and ahead of the cold front, with gusts up to 40mph possible. With these gusts potentially being rather strong, a few power outages cannot be ruled out.
The rest of the short term period will be rather quiet as the troughing pattern transitions to a ridging pattern, along with surface high pressure building in. There will only be a possibility for rain showers Sunday night into Monday thanks to shortwave energy appearing on some models, but chances are slim as of now.
Long Term (Tuesday 3-28-23 through Friday 3-31-23)
A much broader ridging pattern looks to be put into place for the long term, keeping conditions dry for the rest of the work week. Some models are in disagreement on if shortwave energy will try to inch its way back in, providing chances for showers towards the end of the next week; however it is still too early to tell.
