Crazy Weather On The Way

Real-time BG Radar:

Today: Windy and warm. Highs around 71ºF. Tonight: Windy, with mostly cloudy skies and a chance for severe thunderstorms. Lows dipping to around 48ºF.

Boy, do we have a complex forecast for you all today! Sit back, and get the popcorn ready (or review your severe weather preparedness plan).

First of all, your initial thoughts this morning may be, “Wow, its chilly!” That is because it is. You’ll likely be waking up to temps in the mid 40s ahead of the warm front poised to propagate northward across the region through mid-morning. You’ll notice a distinct difference in the temps at 8 am as opposed to them at noon!

Secondly, it is going to be very windy today. The low pressure system responsible for all of this is actually not forecasted to be very intense pressure wise; however, it will be interacting with a fairly strong high pressure system to the easy, creating a tight pressure gradient over the region. Thus, the entire area is under a Wind Advisory from 12 PM today through 6 am tomorrow morning.

Look for winds that will be sustained in the 20-30 mph range, with gusts getting up into the 40-45 mph range. This will definitely cause your lawn chairs and other patio furniture to blow around, so be sure to tie that stuff down! Because of this strong southerly flow, it’ll be fairly easy to get temps to rise higher. Therefore, I see temps rising into the lower 70s for highs under partly to mostly cloudy skies.

The overarching feature that many are focusing on for today is the severe weather threat that we are likely to see this evening and overnight. We have a pretty strong trough and associated jet streak moving into the region, forcing a surface low that should be to our northwest in Missouri by 7 PM this evening. This will have a cold front stretched to the south of it, and our region firmly entrenched in a warm sector.

Now, there are a lot of questions surrounding the severe threat. Will we have enough instability, moisture, etc? Those are questions you should let us worry about, but here is the bottom line for you:

A line of strong to severe thunderstorms is likely to move through the region between 7 PM and Midnight.
Damaging winds are the highest threat with any thunderstorm that forms, but an isolated tornado can’t be ruled out (especially within individual storms ahead of the main line)
Surface winds will be very gusty outside of thunderstorms, and could even be stronger than some that you see in the storms (weaker storms potentially)

All of that being said, here is the forecast that the Storm Prediction Center has outlined for us:

Now, like all forecasts, there are caveats in there, but this is generally a fairly high confidence forecast. I believe that a strong line of storms will impact the region. Whether or not it is very severe remains to be seen. However, with any shower or storm that goes up, there will be the chance for gusty winds because of the strong of the low level winds. Aside from all of this, lows will fall into the upper 40s behind the front later in the night.

Tomorrow: Much calmer, but breezy and cooler. Highs around 62ºF. Wed. night: Partly to mostly cloudy, with a low of around 28ºF.

Holy moly, a much, much calmer day. This is gonna be nice.

Overall, a high pressure system will be settling into the region, and though the low pressure system will be moving onward towards the northeast, we will still see breezy conditions across the region.

Highs will be hit around midnight as the warmest temps of the day will be right around the passing of the cold front . Highs won’t last long in the lower 60s, and will fall into the mid and upper 40s by mid afternoon.

Cloudy will be in and out, but look to be a bit thicker in the afternoon hours. Overnight, temps will to fall into the upper 20s under partly to mostly cloudy skies.

Thursday: Mostly sunny, and cool. Highs around 38ºF. Thur. night: Mostly clear, with lows around 27ºF.

The calmest day of them all! Thursday looks to be pretty awesome, aside from the temps. With high pressure across the region, skies should be mostly clear, with highs topping out in the upper 30s and lower 40s.

Overnight, skies will remain clear, with temps falling into the mid 20s.

Well, that is all I have. Today is gonna be crazy, so be sure to follow @WxOrNotBG on Twitter for the latest!