Good Tuesday evening, everyone. Today was a much deserved reward after we spent two weeks in the deep freeze. To keep it all in perspective, we started last Tuesday bitterly cold with that new record low of -15 on the 16th. Fast forward to today, we hit a high of 73 at Joplin Regional at 2:05 PM. That represents an 88 degree swing in just a week’s time. We’re used to temperature swings around here, but this has to be the biggest swing I’ve seen in the 9 years that I’ve been here.
Even when you compare today to yesterday, it’s still a step in the right direction after we dealt with our spell of Arctic air. Our Monday was good with highs in the upper 20s and lower 30s before highs jumped into the upper 50s. Today was a heat wave with highs in the lower 70s after we started in the upper 30s this morning.
Breaking down our weather setup, it was nice to have a dry air mass, mostly sunny skies and a south breeze in place to send us into mild territory today. However, that south breeze is in between two features at the surface. It’s due to an area of high pressure moving into the Southeast and ahead of our next cold front coming in from the northwest.
Upstairs, we have one wave that will pass to our north across Nebraska and the Upper Midwest through tomorrow while another wave coming out of Canada will head our way by Friday. This pattern of upper-level lows coming out of the northwest looks to continue as we head through our forecast.
As for the rest of the night and Wednesday morning, the cold front pushing through will switch our south wind back out from the north to start cooling us down for the day ahead. Also, the front will have enough moisture for some partly to mostly cloudy skies to develop along with a few showers to start the Wednesday AM drive out. Otherwise, we’ll see lows dropping back into the middle to upper 30s to start the day out.
With this system, we’re only expecting our chances for a few showers to stick with us through the early morning hours. The rest of the day will focus on skies gradually turning partly sunny behind our cold front. Wednesday won’t be mild, but we’ll have temperatures back to where we should be for this time of the year. Everyone should see highs back in the lower 50s for Wednesday afternoon.
Heading into Thursday, we’ll start cold once again with lows around 30 under partly to mostly cloudy skies.
We’ll stay dry for your Thursday, but mostly cloudy skies and a northerly breeze will limit how warm we get throughout the day. We’re expecting highs to top out in the upper 40s to near 50 across the region for Thursday afternoon.
Looking to the weekend, the upper-level low in southwestern Canada will head our way for late Friday and early Saturday. This wants to bring another shot for rain during this time period while we keep highs in the lower 50s for Friday. Once this wave clears, we’ll turn mild again with highs near 60 for Saturday under partly sunny skies.
For Sunday, another system will roll in with better rain chances and cloudy skies to wrap up our weekend. This setup will allow for lows in the middle 40s Sunday morning and highs in the middle 50s for the afternoon.
Sticking with Doug’s pattern, we’ll stay quiet and cool for Monday with highs in the upper 40s. Come Tuesday, we’ll have another system roll in with some snow chances possible in the morning before we switch over to rain chances with highs in the middle 40s for Tuesday afternoon.
If you’re curious as to how we look for the month of March and the first few days of April, Doug has you covered with his long range forecast down below.
Have a good night and a great Wednesday!
Nick
Next Wednesday-Saturday: Next Wednesday look cool as we stay dry. Another system will bring in rain chances and mild temperatures for Thursday and Friday. We’ll dry out and cool back down by Saturday.
March 7th-13th: The week starts with cool temperatures for Sunday and Monday. Mild for Tuesday through Friday before we cool back down on Saturday. The only rain chances we see for this week will be on Thursday and Friday.
March 14th-20th: We start the week with rain or snow chances on Sunday. The cycle before this system produced 1″ of snow. With cool temperatures for Sunday, we’ll watch it. Mild temperatures return for Tuesday and Wednesday with rain chances on Wednesday and Thursday. This system gave us severe weather with some tornado warnings on January 30th, lets watch this one! Cool for Friday before we turn milder for Saturday as we start a dry weekend out.
March 21st-27th: We’ll be mild for Sunday and Monday before we turn briefly cooler for Tuesday. A brief jump to a mild Wednesday before we stay cool for the rest of the week. We’ll watch for slight rain chances on Monday and better rain chances for Wednesday and Thursday.
March 28th-April 3rd: Cool temperatures for Sunday and Monday. We’ll briefly turn mild for Tuesday and Wednesday before we cool back down for the rest of the week. We’ll watch for rain chances on Sunday, slight rain chances on Wednesday, rain chances on Thursday and rain/snow chances to start the weekend out.