Through Sunday, expect plenty of shower and thunderstorm action. Daily rain coverage will be in the 50 to 70 percent range. As usual, thunderstorms this time of year can bring a fast inch or two of rain and frequent lightning. There is also an outside shot of gusty wind.

THE FORECAST:

Today and Tonight: Friday will feature scattered showers and thunderstorms with greater coverage than earlier in the week and an earlier start to the activity. Development may occur by mid-morning with showers and thunderstorms possible right into the late afternoon. Due to this, high temperatures will be limited to the upper 80s. Overnight, skies will stay mostly cloudy with a spotty shower or thunderstorm possible.

Up Next:  Saturday will offer up another round of active weather with scattered showers and thunderstorms possible for much of the day. Again, highs will be limited to about 90 degrees. For now, showers and storms will stay in our forecast for Sunday but it is possible that things work out considerably drier than Saturday. Neither weekend day looks to be a washout but you may want an indoor contingency plan for an hour or two should one of those summer storms move over your location. The next relatively drier and warmer spell will come early next week.

#Hector holds on but #Debby is gone... the Atlantic Basin is pleasantly quiet here in Mid-August. #tropics #DontJynxIt @WBRZweather pic.twitter.com/5CvmjtQVmW

— Josh Eachus (@DrJoshWX) August 10, 2018

The Tropics: The Eastern Pacific remains active right now with three named storms churning. Hurricane Hector is moving away from Hawaii but has strengthened overnight. Tropical Storm John and Tropical Storm Kristy continue an eastward journey away from Mexico and southern California. Debby has dissipated and the Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean Sea and Atlantic Ocean will not have any tropical development over the next 5 days.

THE EXPLANATION:

An upper level trough will extend from the Mid-Mississippi River Valley to the central Gulf Coast through Saturday. This will help create more shower and thunderstorm activity through the upcoming weekend. Daytime heating will still be a key driver of precipitation locally, but there are a few caveats. A front is stalled out from North Carolina to Oklahoma. This boundary will not be close enough to the local area to directly enhance development but if any storm complexes can drift south away from it, they could feasibly make it into southwest Mississippi and southeast Louisiana—nighttime included. At this time, forecast models continue to show very little in the way of vorticity maxima, or upper disturbances, that could also enhance action. Sometimes these are subtle and hard for models to detect so this will be evaluated with remote sensing on a day-to-day basis. Increased moisture in the atmosphere will allow rain amounts to be a bit higher than earlier in the week. Some locations could easily pick up 2 inches in an hour. The general rule of thumb will be 50 to 70 percent coverage of showers and thunderstorms, primarily during the afternoon hours Friday to Sunday. Downpours and frequent lightning can occur in any storm this time of year. On Friday and Saturday, strong winds cannot be ruled out either. By early next week, a ridge is expected to build back into the area from the east, once again curtailing rain coverage.

--Dr. Josh

The WBRZ Weather Team is here for you, on every platform. Your weather updates can be found on News 2, wbrz.com, and the WBRZ WX App. on Apple and Android devices. Follow WBRZ Weather on Facebook and Twitter for even more weather updates while you are on the go.