Chance of Showers or Storms Tonight and Sunday.

The map on the right, what we refer to as a QPF(Quantitative Precipitation Forecast) is valid through this coming Wednesday. Notice it does reflect the possibility for at least some rainfall over that time frame with the most likely time being Sunday, Sunday night and into Monday. That will be in association with a cool front that will be moving across the state later Sunday before stalling out and becoming diffuse on Monday. Notice the total rainfall with this system is not expected to be all that impressive with upwards of ½"possible; but, as dry as this month has been so far, we will certainly take it.

The severe potential with this system also appears to be very limited, and largely confined to the more western counties late this afternoon or early tonight. We will have limited instabilities here which are largely a function of the lack of quality, deep low level moisture from the Gulf of Mexico. Our dew point temperatures have remained generally in the 50s to near 60 despite a gusty southerly wind and that is expected to remain the case until the front arrives.

It will be very windy again this Saturday with southerly winds of 15-30 mph and gusts to near 40 during the day, but subsiding to 10-15 during the overnight hours. Brisk southerly winds will be shifting to northerly later Sunday as the front arrives followed by a NE wind for Monday and back to southerly winds by the middle to latter part of next week. That means any cooling will be rather short lived and things will be warming up again by the middle of the week. Temperatures will continue to be well above normal for today and Sunday, a little closer to normal for Mon into Tue, but much above normal after that.

And, as already mentioned, there will be some rain with the system, but this does not appear to be a big rainmaker for us and will not do much to reduce the rainfall deficit for the month which continues to add up. As mentioned several times before, May is normally our wettest month of the year but it does not look too promising this time around and after the Sun-Mon time frame, it is hard to see when our next decent chance of showers/storms will be.

So, stay tuned and check back for updates.

Dick Faurot