FORECAST DISCUSSION: Friday, May 31 - *** Brief respite on tap this weekend *** High pressure controlling the weather in the East is hindering disease development late this week. Skies are sunny and trajectories don't travel over any major production areas. As the weekend goes on, the High will move off the east coast and a cold front will approach the eastern 1/3 of the U.S. All sources are rated low risk today and tomorrow, except the Kentucky sites are bumped up to moderate for tomorrow and Sunday as the front nears. Much depends on the speed of the front and how much cloudiness and shower activity there is in advance of it.
Thursday's trouble spot was North Florida. There were numerous showers around the region with plenty of clouds to obscure the sun. After looking at a Thursday morning trajectory and the radar images later, it appears that most spores released on Thursday were rained out southeast of the source area, somewhere north of Daytona Beach. Other sites were releasing spores under sunny conditions, or else the trajectories were benign, so they were non-threatening.
If the cold front moves as currently predicted, there may be enough cloudiness Saturday for spores from the KY disease sites to survive transport. An afternoon shower could dump some spores on growing areas to the north of the sources....but if showers move in later, then the spores may be well north of the production region when washed out. Sunday's scenario is vague at this point. The KY sources are probably a moderate risk, and the others low. I'll issue an update later this weekend if necessary. TK
HIGH-RISK SOURCES: None
Web page last updated by Thomas Keever on 31 May 1996.