A stalled frontal boundary remains draped across the Ohio Valley this morning. We note ongoing showers across northern Indiana and Illinois, along with considerable cloudiness in association with the front. Also of interest is the disturbed weather off the FL peninsula this morning. Models differ on the evolution of things, but both the GFS and European model suggest we may have a tropical depression or weak tropical storm on our hands by the Memorial Day weekend. Is it more of a threat to the central Gulf Coast region, such as the European implies, or more of a Carolina event? It’s simply too early to know, but it’ll be fun to watch things play out this week.
Back here on the home front, a quiet start to our Monday will turn stormy at times this evening as the front nears. We think best coverage of showers and thunderstorms will come between 5p and 10p. There will be some winners and losers when it comes to rainfall amounts by midnight. Some can expect over an inch in the stronger storms while others may only see a tenth of an inch, or so. Something that must be taken into forecasts moving forward is the tendency of most model data (high resolution and global data alike) to “over forecast” rainfall amounts as of late. Also of note is for the potential of a couple of strong to severe storms to develop this evening. We always have to be wary of fronts draped across central Indiana as they’ve been known to help tornadic activity spin up. We’ve lost count of how many slight risk days with warm fronts nearby that turn busy… If you’re planning to be outdoors this evening, please have a means of receiving the latest watches and potential warnings that may be issued.
High pressure will build in for the midweek period and supply plentiful sunshine along with continued warmer than average conditions. Overnight lows will fall into the upper 50s (couple of degrees above average) with the drier air mass in place, but afternoon highs will continue to climb into the lower and middle 80s (around 10 degrees above average).
Good news this morning for all of the Race Day and Memorial Day weekend activities is that forecast models are backing off (seeing a common theme?) on the magnitude and overall coverage of showers and thunderstorms associated with our next system. While we’ll maintain widely scattered thunderstorms in our Saturday-Monday forecast, much more of the time period will be free of any rain and storm activity.
Longer term, thoughts are shifting towards the open to meteorological summer (where is this year going?!). The GFS ensemble suggests the overall warm pattern remains intact as we open a new season with widespread warmth expected through the first few days of the June.
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That will flip around in big time fashion this week as a highly amplified pattern takes hold. The mean trough position will shift into the west and lead to an early taste of winter, including mountain snow. Meanwhile, our region will make up for lost time in the summer department, including highs generally in the mid to upper 80s (around 10° above average).
Daily chances of widely scattered afternoon and evening thunderstorms will be with us beginning today through the majority of the upcoming week. Everyone won’t get wet, but there will be a couple of localized heavy downpours on area radars at times. As dry as we’ve been, we’ll take what we can get.
Eventually, the pattern will “relax” (at least briefly) out towards Day 10. This will feature a more seasonable regime returning to the region, along with better chances of more widespread rains as a cold front approaches. We’ll also have to keep a close eye on additional tropical threats to the southeast region…
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