Possible Storms Tonight, Turning Cooler.

In this morning's discussion, I showed a graphic depicting the forecast position of the dry line by late this afternoon. The map on the right shows the relative humidity and you can clearly see where the dry line is. Comparing the two reveals that the forecast position was a little too far east which often happens when trying to determine how far east the dry line will make it into our part of the state.

So far, the instability and convergence along and ahead of the dry line has not been strong enough to overcome a more stable layer of air aloft. That is expected to change during the late evening/overnight hours as a cool front will be merging with the dry line and then surging on southward. The stronger dynamics associated with the cool front is expected to be enough for storms to develop over the more eastern counties this evening and tonight. There remains the possibility that some of them would be severe with winds and hail the primary threats.

After that, this recent taste of summer will be replaced by more seasonal temperatures for at least part of the coming week. Gusty NW winds on Monday and perhaps even some lingering morning showers will be followed by clearing skies as the day wears on and cooler temperatures. Tuesday will start off clear and cool, but a return to southerly winds will result in a nice rebound that afternoon. Wed will be warm and windy once again with a high fire danger, but another system will be moving through on Thursday. Right now, it appears that the better parameters for showers or storms will probably be north or east of us again, but at least we have a chance for the Thu/Fri time frame.

That should be followed by cooler conditions as we head into the coming weekend. There are indications of additional storm systems coming our way during that following week which may yet provide some decent rainfall. Don't get your hopes up too high just yet though.

In the meantime, stay tuned and check back for updates.

Dick Faurot