Near Normal Week Ahead.

I must not be living right. I was looking at the total precipitation map for the state that I posted yesterday after those generous Friday rains and realized that at my place I did not even receive ¼ inch out of all that. Oh well, just don't want to catch up all at once the next time we have a round of showers and storms.

And it looks like it will be awhile before we have another widespread rainmaker such as the last event was. A weaker upper level system will be passing overhead Tuesday and Tuesday night, but the forcing with it is not all that impressive and it does not have a lot of moisture to work with. So, will maintain a slight 20% PoP for Tuesday afternoon through the overnight hours. Also, the thermal structure of the atmosphere aloft would support some snow or a rain/snow mix, particularly for the more northern counties Tuesday night. Current indications do not suggest it would amount to much more than a dusting though, if even that.

That all means the main forecast challenge is temperatures, and cloud cover will play a large part in that. The stratus deck we have this morning has even produced a few sprinkles, but there will be nothing measurable from it and those clouds should be thinning out this afternoon. We should have enough sunshine this afternoon for temperatures to rebound into the 40s to near 50.

Today's brisk northerly winds will be calming down tonight and with generally fair skies temperatures will be in the 20s to start the day Monday. High level cirrus clouds may impact the afternoon highs but with light southerly winds we should still make it to around the 50 degree mark.

Tuesday will see mostly cloudy skies due to the system mentioned above as well as southerly winds shifting back to the NW behind a surface cool front that will also be pushing across the state by afternoon. That makes the temperature forecast a little tricky as the clouds and southerly winds should keep us from falling below freezing that morning and the clouds and timing of the wind shift should limit the daytime temperatures to the lower 50s.

Brisk northerly winds on Wednesday but with lots of sunshine should result in daytime highs in the 40s. After that, another re-enforcing surge of cooler air looks to arrive on Friday keeping temperatures near or perhaps slightly below normal going into the coming weekend.

So far the pattern continues to keep pushing the coldest air off to the east of us and we end up with just glancing blows from time to time. There continue to be no definitive short term indications of any arctic air headed our way anytime soon. Of course, that can change on relatively short notice so stay tuned and check back for updates.

Dick Faurot