After a blustery and chilly Saturday (and temperatures in the upper 30s to start our Sunday), a gorgeous close to the weekend is ahead. Wall-to-wall sunshine is expected with moderating temperatures this afternoon. Our average high on the 23rd of April is 66° and we should be very close to that later this afternoon. Enjoy!
High pressure will remain entrenched over our area as we progress through the early portions of the work week. This will provide pleasant weather and plentiful sunshine. With a dry airmass in place, expect significant temperature swings. Overnight lows in the 40s will quickly rise into the 70s Monday and Tuesday.
High pressure will dominate our early-week weather.
A southerly flow will help pull a more humid air mass northward Wednesday and as a cold front slices into the unseasonably warm and muggy airmass, we expect showers and thunderstorms to increase Wednesday evening into Thursday morning. We still have some time to watch things evolve, but from this distance, we feel strong to severe thunderstorm potential is present during this period. Locally heavy rains are also possible as PWATs zoom to 1.5″ +.
Precipitable water values will increase to 1.5″+ Wednesday and support the threat of locally heavy rain.
We’ll get into some briefly drier air to wrap up the work week, but a warm front will blow through the region Saturday and will likely be accompanied by thunderstorms as it lifts north. Once the warm front passes, unseasonably warm and humid air will make a return and set the stage for a true summer-like feel next weekend. We expect highs to go into the lower to middle 80s with a muggy feel, as well.
Finally, after Saturday morning thunder, we think the majority of next weekend is dry before a cold front brings a return to widespread showers and thunderstorms late Sunday.
Highs will run close to 15° above average this afternoon.
Stormy weather returns Monday as a frontal boundary slips into the state. A couple storms may become strong or severe Monday afternoon and the Storm Prediction Center highlights northwestern portions of the state for a Slight Risk. Damaging straight line winds are of greatest concern with any severe storm that may develop.
High pressure returns for midweek and supplies a dry regime, along with increasing sunshine and temperatures that will run slightly above average (mid-40s at night and 65°-70° during the day).
There are questions once to the end of the period as the GFS and European handle the evolution of our late-week storm differently. The GFS brings energy out into the Ohio Valley and results in unsettled weather returning Friday, continuing into Easter weekend, while the European is slower. We’ll keep an eye on things over the next few days and update accordingly. The GFS suggests some localized heavier downpours would be possible in the Friday-Sunday period as the majority of the 7-day precipitation snapshot below falls within the timeframe.
Week 2:
Weeks 3-4:
The big picture is one that shows a drier pattern developing across the East during Week 1, but we caution that this drier regime doesn’t look to “lock” in. Data suggests we get back to an active pattern between Week’s 2-4, biased wetter than normal in the Mid West and Plains. The other screaming message is that a busy severe season should continue through the period. Cold sets up across the Pacific Northwest, associated with the “mean” trough position, while spring-like warmth continues to build across our region in overall terms. We know what that means as storms eject off the Rockies and track east…
This will take us through mid week and into the weekend with lows in the single digits and lower teens and highs generally in the lower and middle 20s. We still need to watch Thursday evening-night for a wave of low pressure that may attempt to deliver light snow, but this doesn’t look like a significant event from this distance.
To further complicate matters, the European and Canadian solutions are much less robust and result in a more suppressed scenario. Forecasters (including yours truly) can only wish for the days to return of worrying about respected snow/ mix/ rain lines amongst the various data, versus the present time of models showing a storm only to take it away from run-to-run and other modeling not even showing the storm.
That brings us to our next point and that’s the modeling performance, itself. For really the better part of a year now, modeling has been poor, at best- even in the short-term solutions. More recently speaking to the last few months, I can’t recall model data ever performing worse (13 years of forecasting experience).