Finally, a dry week! If you got “spring fever” last week, this week you’ll need to check into the metaphorical hospital as we enjoy 5 days of dry weather and increasing warmth. Gardens and lawns will be blooming and growing rapidly and farmers will finally have a good week to get crops in the ground. Wet soils have made it difficult to bring heavy equipment into the fields, but that will change this week.
The large storm that pushed warm air into the region late last week was also responsible for the cold air this past weekend and we went from a high of 72 on Friday to 51 on Saturday and only 43 on Sunday with periods of light rain…from spring fever to real fevers, coughs, colds and more in just two days. After a drop of more than 30 degrees, we’ll see a nice rebound this week. However, a Freeze Watch is in effect for tonight, and I expect to see lows in the upper 20s in most areas, and then the warming can begin.
Everything in the atmosphere is moving more slowly now, and that is partly because of the big storm that just moved east. It was so large that it blocked the eastward movement of other storms. In fact, low pressure in the upper atmosphere extends all the way from Nova Scotia to Alabama! If we look at this like traffic on any one of the area highways, we know that when one roadway gets blocked, it starts affecting other roads. In the upper atmosphere, at the jet stream level (18,000 feet), I am seeing slow traffic all the way back into the north Pacific Ocean, and that means that whatever weather pattern we’re in, it will be around for a while…“a while” being defined as 3 to 5 days.
As the eastern storm slowly moves away, we’re now going to enjoy 5 days with at least partial sunshine, and 3 of those should have full sunshine. It all starts today, a day which will have the most cloud cover and coolest temperatures of the next 5. Expect variably cloudy skies, steady north winds and afternoon highs in the upper 40s. There may even be an isolated sprinkle. By tomorrow, high pressure (sinking air, light winds) will settle into the Midwest with abundant sunshine and highs in the upper 50s. South winds will return late Wednesday, allowing temperatures to reach the upper 60s to near 70, with low 70s Thursday and Friday! Wednesday and Thursday will be sunny, but some clouds return on Friday as a new weekend storm approaches…but this one will not be a big storm…so enjoy the great week ahead!
Get your detailed forecast on tonight’s Weather Rush (at WeatherRush.com) the Nation’s first and only "live" web weathercast each night (M-F) at 7 pm eastern time, and if you want the current weather along with my 7-day outlook, area web cams, radars and more, check out the Skyeye Weather Daily Weather Page at SkyeyeWeather.com.
Rich Apuzzo :)
www.skyeyeweather.com
