Good Monday evening, everyone. It was nice to see the sun back in action today after we had rain and some t-storms to wrap up the weekend on Sunday. After we started in the lower to middle 40s, highs climbed back into the lower 60s across the area. While it will be nice to keep skies generally mostly clear, it will lead us into a cold Tuesday morning. In fact, frost advisories are out for a good portion of the area until we hit 9 AM on your Tuesday.
Looking at the surface map, our last cold front is continuing to push into the eastern and southeastern parts of the Lower 48. Even with a weak cold front dying just to our north, we’ll have the area of high pressure over Winnipeg keep a north and northeasterly breeze in place for tonight and Tuesday. In the meantime, we’ll also keep an eye on our next storm system that’ll come out of the west and toward us later this week.
With our light breeze and mostly clear skies, lows will drop back into the middle to upper 30s across the area for your Tuesday morning. If you have plants or vegetation can’t take these temperatures, either have them covered or brought in for the night.
Fortunately, the same light northeast breeze and mostly sunny skies will allow us to quickly warm up throughout the day. Once we get into the lower 60s by the noon hour, we’ll continue to push into the middle to upper 60s by the end of the afternoon.
Even with mostly to partly sunny skies lined up for our Tuesday, we’ll continue to trend a bit warmer after we start Wednesday morning on a cool note. Once we get out of the lower to middle 40s, the returning south wind will bring us back into the lower to middle 70s for our Wednesday afternoon.
It’ll start to get a bit active again by Thursday, though. With the frontal system approaching and a weak wave riding along the jet stream, we’ll have scattered showers and t-storms under mostly cloudy skies for the day. That will only knock high temperatures back into the upper 60s across the area.
Sticking with Doug’s pattern, though, our next big system in the pattern will come our way as we head into Friday. While it will be a bit warm during the day with highs in the middle 70s, the incoming upper-level low will continue to push the cold front our way. You can see how we’ll have the chance for scattered showers and t-storms for Friday afternoon and night down below. However, we need to keep an eye on this setup. This system has a stronger cold front, more moisture, instability and better upper-level support to work with. However, a moderate to almost strong cap (layer of warm air aloft) will try to set itself up once again. If we can break through the cap, we’ll watch for a low severe threat in our western counties for Friday afternoon and evening. It’s something we’ll continue to watch very closely.
After that system keeps the chance for scattered showers and t-storms around for Friday night and Saturday morning, we’ll be dry for the rest of Saturday and Sunday. Highs for both days will range between the lower and middle 70s. Following the dry end to the weekend, we’ll have another system eager to bring additional t-storm chances back in for next Monday. We’ll stay mild for next Monday with highs in the upper 60s.
Doug’s long range forecast takes you through much of the month of May down below. Have a good night and a great Tuesday!
Nick
May 3rd-7th: A mild start to the week but warming up by mid week. Thunderstorm chances Wednesday through Friday with a severe threat on Friday.
May 15th-21st: Cooler start to the week with thunderstorms Tuesday and Wednesday. We warm up toward the weekend with Saturday thunderstorms, most likely severe.