Soggy start to the New Year

Happy New Years, everyone! We hope you are having a great start to 2021 and we hope you make it a great year too! We are starting off the new year rather busy with the weather. We have a complex system currently impacting most of the Eastern U.S. and we are tracking another system for the weekend. Long story short, it is going to be a soggy start to the new year.

A large storm system is currently centered off to our west. An impactful winter storm is currently affecting areas from Texas up to Missouri and into Illinois. Heavy snow and significant ice are making for hazardous travel across the heartland. Luckily, we are on the warm side of the system and are dealing with just plain old rain.

We have showers and a few heavy downpours moving through the area this morning. We will begin to see a break in the action as we head into the late morning hours and early afternoon. The Storm Prediction Center has placed areas just to our south under a Marginal risk for severe weather. WABBLES is currently under a general thunderstorm risk for today.

The data does want to bring in some surface based instability (fuel) into the area later today. While this is likely, strong storms will struggle to develop this afternoon. Any storms that do develop will have the potential to produce gusty winds. A brief spin up tornado cannot be completely ruled out, but this threat will likely stay to our south.

Temperatures are expected to soar to near 70 degrees this afternoon as the cold front approaches. It will definitely feel like spring later today before we cool down as the front passes through this evening. Here are the forecasted high temperatures for today.

Additional rainfall amounts will add up to under 1/2in for most. The rain will become more scattered this afternoon so not everyone will be receive the same amounts. The rain should be out of here by around midnight.

The clouds over the next few days will be tough to kick out. Here is a look at cloud cover through Saturday night. Ughh. What does it take to get some sun around here!

Weekend System

Are eyes then turn to another system that will impact our area Saturday night. This weak upper level low will likely bring some cold showers to the area Saturday night and into Sunday morning.

Future Radar for the weekend system…

That’ll wrap things up for this New Year’s Day edition of the blog. We would like to wish everyone the best in 2021!

Thanks for supporting @wxornotBG!