If you’ve been out and about this Weekend, you’ll know it was a little cool, a tad dreary, and generally not what one would call “Spring-like” – but fret not, because it’s coming back soon.
To kick off our look at the forecast, the news is good – we won’t be having so much in the way of the Monday blues up here, because we get those lovely upper 60s (maybe a 70 or two sprinkled in, in spots?) and clearing skies, increasingly so through the day, helping pave the way for that warming trend over the coming several days.
We don’t really shake the warm-up too quickly, either – Tuesday and Wednesday are both equally lovely days, if not better if you are a fan of the increasing warmth as we see mid-70s return in a widespread fashion both days. With this in mind, I would say that the first part of the week up through Wednesday is the timeframe you’ll probably want to run any errands outside, because these days are all very much similar in their dry conditions and warmth on the whole.
Wednesday night is, in a sense, our dividing line between drier weather and a more active, Spring-like pattern kicking in that eventually leads to more substantial thunderstorm chances by the Weekend.
Now, these initial showers and rumbles of thunder late Wednesday and persisting into Thursday won’t themselves be of any major concern in the severe weather sense. From midnight to the early morning hours of Thursday, we see the development of those showers, perhaps a storm here and there, off to our Southwest and watch those lift into the Tennessee Valley through the day Thursday. Needless to say by Thursday, you’re going to want to keep that umbrella on hand. As far as the core of the daytime hours of our Week go, Thursday is likely the main day we see thunderstorm chances. Later Friday and into Saturday, however, is a different story, and in a big way.
Sure enough, we’re keeping a close eye on the developing severe weather chances with that very large, expansive system swinging through in the Friday night – Saturday timeframe (if you tuned in yesterday, you may have noticed me mentioning this system as one we’re keeping a very close eye on in the 7 day at the end of the shows).
To start, this event looks to be centered up through Friday afternoon over much of Arkansas, Louisiana, Missouri, and portions of the MS River states and along the MS Delta region, with all severe weather hazards being possible – that is to say, damaging winds, large hail, and tornadoes. It’s as that system pushes east into Friday overnight, as well as into the early AM Saturday that we begin to see our chances – again, of all hazards; damaging winds, hail, and tornadoes – increase locally, in a way representing “round 1”. If you have a weather radio, have those batteries charged up or leave your phone warning notifications on; because at night, you are going to need a loud way of getting warnings that can wake you up.
Of additional concern is the fact that as we continue through Saturday, this isn’t necessarily one of those systems that swings through in a few hours, and is off the coast 12-18 hours later – rather, this system re-ups on itself, and favorable conditions for all hazards of severe weather look to persist well into Saturday afternoon locally, suggesting that this could be a more prolonged chance at severe weather. This also unsurprisingly opens the door for flooding concerns, given just how expansive the window for thunderstorm activity is in time. Of course, the timeline doesn’t effect our staffing – we will be monitoring every minute of this system and will be with you until its as good as gone.
The 7 day sure shows that dividing line between a clearer, nicer first half of the week and a more unsettled, stormy second half. Throughout, we consistently stay in the 70s, though we may start seeing a 10 to 15 degree cooldown for a window of time after this system swings through, bringing drier and cooler air in behind it, though there are some signals we may return to Spring-like temperatures in the extended term, so we’ll keep an eye on those trends as well. All and all, as mentioned earlier, tomorrow through to Wednesday is the key timeframe of nice weather you’ll want to take advantage of as far as this week is concerned, because by the time I’m talking to you this time next weekend, it may be about severe weather!
