The morning is starting off on a beautiful note- brilliant blue skies (aside from a little patchy fog for northwestern ‘burbs early on), lower humidity, and temperatures around 60°. Pleasant conditions will continue today with plentiful sunshine and highs topping out in the middle 80s.
A cold front will approach late tonight, passing through central Indiana Sunday morning. This will deliver scattered thunderstorms during the overnight and pre dawn hours Sunday.
Unfortunately, this won’t be a widespread soaking rain, but there will be a few neighborhoods that cash in on locally heavy downpours. Where thunderstorms track, a couple of 1″+ reports can be expected.
A pleasant air mass will arrive on the scene for the second half of the weekend and remain with us into early next week. With lower humidity in place, overnight lows will fall into the 50s early next week.
Dry conditions will remain as high pressure gains control before thunderstorm chances return by the middle of next week.
Concern is on the increase for the potential of strong to severe thunderstorms to impact central parts of the state Wednesday evening and night. That said, there are questions with how quickly the atmosphere will be able to recover from morning cloudiness and scattered thundershowers.
Current thinking leans towards a brightening sky through the mid and late afternoon hours which will help destabilize things for potentially a “more significant” event Wednesday evening and night (bracketing the hours of 6p to midnight from west to east).
Storms are expected to exit off to the east by midnight:
The primary concern that severe thunderstorms may deal central Indiana lies around damaging straight line winds and large hail, however, it should also be noted current parameters also suggest a couple of storms could spawn a tornado.
At times, rain will fall at a moderate to heavy intensity tonight into Sunday, especially across the eastern half of the state. Additional rainfall totals of 1″ to 2″ can be expected in and around the city, itself, and points east.
The other item of interest tonight will be the tight temperature gradient across the state. Don’t be surprised by perhaps as much of a 30° spread from north to central parts of the state this evening as the “backdoor” cold front begins to drop south. You’ll certainly notice once the front passes.
Eventually, cold will overwhelm and the second half of the weekend will wrap up on a downright “raw” note. As precipitation wraps around the area of low pressure Sunday night and Monday, it’ll fall as snow here. In fact, snowfall intensity is likely to be great enough to put down a coating in spots Monday morning across central Indiana.
Drier weather returns Tuesday before a weak weather system deliver gusty winds and a possible shower Wednesday (not a big deal). The majority of the upcoming week will run well below average- highlighted by the coldest day on Monday and reinforcing chill Thursday and Friday.
Our next storm system of significance will be slated for an arrival next weekend. While we’ll have to fine tune timing as we get closer, plan on increasing rain chances as the day progresses next Saturday.
As upper level energy moves overhead, mixed rain and snow showers will fall early next week.
Longer term, the negative NAO will continue to lead to prolonged colder than average temperatures. At this point, we think this pattern will run at least through the remainder of April.
The end result? You know it: a persistent eastern trough and associated colder than average feel…
