Partly to mostly sunny skies will be here today and temps should again be about 5-7 degrees warmer than yesterday. The entire state will be rain free today, but northern areas will see clouds build this afternoon ahead of rain that will be around tonight. Showers and thunderstorms develop tonight over the northern half of the state, and mostly from SR 26 northward. Rain totals in those areas can be from .25”-1” with 90% coverage. However, south of SR 26 we see little to no action. There can be some lingering showers Friday morning from US 24 northward, and those could add another few hundredths to a tenth or two, but really, the threat of moisture falls off dramatically after sunrise with cloudy to partly sunny skies emerging. The rest of the state from US 24 southward will be partly to mostly sunny again. The full state sees sunshine, for the weekend, although Sunday clouds will be increasing along with gusty winds. Temps will be well above normal for the weekend, perhaps the warmest in 8 months!
Scattered showers arrive over the state Sunday evening and continue through the overnight. However, we continue to see minimal moisture to work with, so our rain totals remain at few hundredths to .3” with coverage at 60%.
A large part of our forecast for next week remains dry. Sunshine dominates for Monday and Tuesday. Sunshine also dominates from Wednesday afternoon through next Sunday. However, if you notice a small window of time missing, that is the one little hiccup that could upset the whole apple cart next week on dry weather. We continue to watch an exceptionally strong storm complex rip through the central and western corn belt next Tuesday night through Wednesday morning. Right now we still think that most of the action stays west. However, models are all over the place with precipitation. For now, we are still going to stay dry, but say watch the period closely. IF moisture does manage to expand east…it could easily bring a half to 2 inches of rain. So this will end up being the huge key to a substantial dry window, and perhaps the best planting opportunity we get for the year. Time will tell. The map shows cumulative 10 day rain potential.
The rest of the extended period has a little more activity returning. Memorial Day itself, we turn out cloudy to partly sunny with a few scattered showers and thunderstorms moving in. We are raising rain totals for Memorial Day to .25”-.75” with 60% coverage. Tuesday the 28 still looks like the wettest day of the period as we are upping our rain potential there to half to 2 inches and coverage at 80%. The rest of the extended period we are keeping dry with partly to mostly sunny skies the 29th through the 31st. However, the most recent runs of extended models are trying to bring in more moisture. We want to see more data before jumping on something like that.
