#MEwx rain/snow is on the way today/tonight. And, what is an "inverted trough?"

Good morning Augusta

A direct, real-time feed from my personal weather station is available for you here.

Today it’s going to be partly sunny during morning hours, turning mostly cloudy with a chance of rain this afternoon. Highs in the lower 40s. Light and variable winds. 

Tonight we’ll have rain this evening with more rain and a chance of snow after midnight. Little or no snow accumulation. Lows in the mid 30s. Northeast winds will be 10 to 15 mph with gusts up to 25 mph.

The readings from my weather instruments are:

Our outdoor temperature is 31.5°F, the humidity is 86%, the Dew Point is 27.7°F and our wind chill is 31.5°F.

The wind direction is Northwest between 0.0 MPH and 0.1 MPH.  

The Relative pressure is 30.01, the Absolute pressure is 29.81 and falling with a weather graphic indicating snow/rain.

Visibility is 10.0 Miles with bright sunny skies again out there.

We didn’t receive any rain/snow here over the past 24 hours, but it’s on the way for later today, so get prepared.

The local weather forecaster on TV has used the term “inverted trough” a few times and I didn’t know what that is. So, I looked it up. The explanation is below, and I found it on a real informative web site that you might want to look at. I’ve copied the text below, but the pictures, as you may expect, are much better than a thousand words. The web site is:

https://www.theweatherprediction.com/habyhints/126/

“WHAT IS AN INVERTED TROUGH?”

METEOROLOGIST JEFF HABY

In the mid-latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere a

Trough is usually seen as a southerly bulge in the

height contours

. The lowest heights are generally located to the north of the trough. In an inverted trough situation, the height contours bulge to the north. This is

more common in the tropical regions where regions of low pressure ride south of a mid-latitude high pressure but can happen in the mid-latitudes when low

pressure is south of high pressure. An inverted trough bulges to the north. At first it may look like a ridge, but on further inspection it is a trough.

Both a trough and an inverted trough have a cyclonic (counterclockwise) flow pattern. A trough will tend to have more westerly winds associated with it

while an inverted trough will tend to have more easterly winds associated with it. If an inverted trough is actually a ridge then the winds will be flowing

with the height contours in the opposite direction (anti-cyclonic direction). The direction of windflow through the feature is how a ridge is discerned

from an inverted trough.

Tropical waves will show up as inverted troughs because they are generally south of mid-latitude high pressure and have an easterly wind associated with them.

Also, you may have heard the term “GFS” during the local weather forecast lately. GFS stands for “Global Forecasting System.”