Ahhh... Sunshine!!

Another bright and sunshine filled day today, with surface winds becoming southerly in the afternoon to aid in our warming temperatures. Highs today were widely in the 50s for areas without snow cover, even well into the 40s for those on the southern portions of the snowpack. Areas further north across Iowa were still held into the 30s due to the large snow pack in their area, plus the surrounding. Nonetheless the warm air temperature and unabated sun did allow for melting which showed up as some dense fog during the morning hours. We'll look for another day of warming temperatures and clear skies for a majority of the Central Plains tomorrow, just ahead of a disturbance that will be developing in the lee of the Rockies.

This upper level system is a fairly compact, but strong system that will bring a good chance of rain and even isolated thunderstorms to portions of the central Plains. Latest model tracks have continued the trend of a cut-off low pressure system moving east/northeast from eastern Colorado into central Nebraska Friday night, then slowly meandering eastward across Iowa through Saturday night. This will lead to a good chance of rain showers for areas north of I70 in both Kansas and Missouri and as far north as the Dakota borders and central Minnesota. Most of this precipitation should fall as rain, however, as the upper level low continues to deepend and cool areas north of Highway 30 in northeast Nebraska and Iowa as well as adjacent areas of southeast South Dakota and southern Minnesota may be able to see some mixed precipitation and snowfall. The wintery precipitation will have its' best chance late Saturday through early Sunday with accumulations remaining minimal for most areas. Decent amounts of rain are possible for the remainder of the area, including those that have several inches of water frozen in their snowpacks. This will amount to some rapid rises in rivers over the weekend and may in turn cause flooding concerns for areas of Iowa and places downstream.

Many people are still watching the stronger system for early next week, with many eyes on it for the first severe weather event for the Plains states. Moisture return is weak thus far, but there is still several days of warming and moistening to go for many areas of the southern Plains. The latest GFS and its' ensembles have taken the further south track today with the center of the 500hPa low tracking along the Oklahoma/Kansas border into Arkansas on Tuesday. This is seemingly becoming the favorite solution of the models, at least until the disturbance comes ashore and the models actually get a good look at its' dynamics. Nonetheless, expect rain to dominate the forecast for the southern and central Plains for early next week. With the best chance of thunder coming for areas of Texas and Oklahoma, however areas of Kansas/Missouri can't rule out the thunder given intense lapse rates under the closed low aloft. One of the best highlights with this southern track is that there is really no cold air to be advected south, thus we'll keep temperatures near normal for most of next week. Could we be looking at a sign that spring may actually be arriving?!?

An additional update is possible tomorrow, however a 3-day weekend and continued warm weather will hopefully keep me busy with other things!