Feeling Like Summer…
Highlights:
- Dry open to the week
- Warming up and turning humid
- Storm chances mid week on
Beautiful Open To The Week…High pressure and a dry air mass will result in lots of sunshine to open the week. After a chilly first few weeks of May, we’ll see improvements in the mercury this week. A dry air mass will still result in cool overnight lows through Tuesday morning, but we’ll shift to a much more humid regime for mid and late week. Additionally, temperatures will continue to climb into the lower 80s for highs. Prepare to sweat.
The increased moisture and an approaching frontal boundary will help ignite scattered showers and thunderstorms for the second half of the week. We also have a close eye on Wednesday for the potential of strong to severe thunderstorms. While it won’t rain the entire time, prepare for “splash and dash” showers and storms into the important Memorial Day/ Indy 500 weekend…
Dry and sunny weather will greet us to open the new work week, along with temperatures that will approach the 80 degree mark by Tuesday. Have yard work to get caught up on? Take advantage of the early week weather.
As such, we’ll increase the chances of showers and thunderstorms in our mid week forecast. It’ll also be a much more humid feel of things (really for the first time this year) as surface dew points surge into the upper 60s to lower 70s. (In other words, “oppressive”).
Factor in PWATs (precipitable water values) zooming to 1.5″-1.8″ and the threat is there for localized heavy downpours around mid week.
Additionally, we also note the Storm Prediction Center (SPC) has placed western sections of our forecast area in a risk of severe weather Wednesday. We’ll keep a close eye on things.
As we progress into the late week period and on into the long holiday/ race weekend, a warm, humid, and unsettled time of things is expected to continue. It’s tough to pinpoint specifics from this distance, but just keep note of the threat of thunderstorms into and through the upcoming busy weekend, along with warm (highs in the lower to middle 80s; lows in the upper 60s) and humid conditions.
We’ll remain below average through the upcoming week, but temperatures will begin to moderate over the weekend into next week.
In general, we agree with the temperature anomalies above, courtesy of the GEFS. As noted, the cool start to the period will moderate and turn warmer next week. Unfortunately, that warmer trend won’t last and it’s likely we trend cooler around the Memorial Day weekend.
Drier air is still expected for mid week, as high pressure builds into the region. Needed sunshine and pleasant conditions can be expected.
As we look forward to the weekend, modeling is still at odds with one another. The European remains consistent on the idea of heavy rain while the GFS remains consistent on a drier solution (rain, but much lighter amounts). That said, we note the consensus of the GFS ensemble members is more aggressive and reflects the idea of the European. We’ll remain firm on the idea of potentially heavy rain building in Friday into Saturday.