Mild Next Few Days, Much Colder Next Week.

Here comes the cold…..well, not right away, but you will certainly notice the difference next week. In the meantime, we will have some ups and downs with respect to temperature as some rapidly moving, relatively weak cool fronts will be quickly moving across the state over the next few days.

The first one will arrive early Thursday morning but it will not have any active weather as it will be moisture starved. Now that our clouds are clearing out this evening, we should have lots of sunshine for Thursday and Friday. The sunny skies on Thursday will offset a northerly wind of 10-15 mph so daytime highs will be in the lower 60s after a cool start in the lower 40s.

Friday will start off in the mid-upper 30s so a cold start followed by an afternoon high in the mid 60s along with the sunny skies and a return to southerly winds of 10-20 mph. Yet another cool front will arrive that night so brisk northerly winds will prevail for much of the day Saturday. We should also have a little more cloud cover on Saturday so look for daytime highs to hold in the upper 50s for the most part.

Sunday into Monday will see a return to gusty southerly winds so after a chilly start with temperatures in the 30s Sunday morning, that afternoon will be back into the 60s. Monday will start off milder due to the southerly winds with morning lows in the 40s and that afternoon should make it back into the 60s.

Then, the much colder air will be arriving late Monday or Monday night. Mentioned this particular system in the blog yesterday and also the uncertainty associated with just how cold this would be as the longer range guidance was not in agreement at that time. I also mentioned that it appeared the cool side of guidance would probably win the day and that is looking more and more likely as the data runs since then have been converging on by far the coldest air of the season moving our way.

Another thing that was mentioned yesterday was the potential impact of W Pacific typhoon Nuri as it undergoes extratropical evolution and amplifies the flow in the Bering Sea. This anticipated amplification has downstream impacts resulting in a more favorable environment for cold air to surge southward through the US east of the Rockies. The guidance coming in today continues to lean that direction which means easily the coldest air of the season will be arriving during the Tue/Wed time frame of next week. Notice the 8-14 day outlooks which have a strong signal suggesting below normal temperatures along with little or no mention of precipitation during that time frame.

The numbers regarding just how cold will be refined in coming days with additional data runs, but morning lows will likely be in the 20s with daytime highs struggling to make it into the 40s the way things look now. Moisture still appears to be limited at this time, so any prospects for precipitation appear to be minimal.

As always, stay tuned and check back for updates.

Dick Faurot