The worst of the precipitation is done over the state this morning. However, that does not mean we have all that nice of a forecast for you. On the contrary?there is no change in our thinking this morning that we are looking at cloudy, damp, cold batch of nasty in here over the next 48 hours, at least compared to the glorious summer extension we found ourselves in last week. The front is through the state. But we are seeing strong winds circulating around the low off to our north and east this morning and that will keep plenty of cold air pushing into the region. Moisture still can get wrung out. In fact, we can?t completely rule out spits, sprinkles drizzle and a shower or two over northern areas. The worst will be over Lake Erie and north of there, but we are keeping eyes peeled farther south, perhaps over at least the northern most two rows of counties across the state. Clouds hold firm tomorrow, and the damp feel is still here, but no the spits and sprinkles are gone. There will be absolutely NO DRYING through today and tomorrow. Just don?t even think about it.
The coldest part of the incoming air mass is here tomorrow. In fact, as skies clear out overnight tomorrow night, we think there is some potential for patchy frost over the state. Patchy is the key word here, as it will be difficult to see it in a majority of places. But, with the right clearing, temps will be cold enough to trigger light frost. Sunshine is in for Thursday and Friday. Southwest winds will start to increase, and we will see temps moderate some. We hesitate to use the word ?warming? here, though, as we really do not see anything more than a bounce off of the peak of cold air from midweek.
Our next front is here on Saturday. It looks a little more impressive this morning, with rain totals ranging from .1?-.9? and coverage at nearly 100%. The rains will cause another slowdown in field work potential (but can you really slow it down, if it never really ramped back up very much?). However, the bigger story will be the cold air coming in behind that front. It is a strong push of cold air from the north and west, and it will likely bring our first good hard frost of the fall season to a large part of the state. The best chance for the frost will be overnight Sunday night into Monday morning. The map above shows overnight low temps as of 7AM Monday morning.
We still have a dry forecast for a large part of next week. No new rain in Monday through early Thursday. Some models suggest that we have a minor trough working in later Thursday into Friday. This falls in line with thoughts from 24 hours ago, and we think this may be a precursor to a much larger system for the extended 11-16 day forecast window. WE will continue to keep an eye on the period and be ready to add a few scattered showers into early Friday. For now, we are leaving our forecast alone, and dry.
In that extended window, we still see a strong storm complex developing in the plains with significant cold air pressing in from the north and northwest for late the 4th through the 6th. This likely is the first big potential winter storm out there, but here we still like rain. We have action arriving later the 5th and extending through the 6th, and we are keeping rain totals at .5?-1? over 80%^ of the state. This is a system to watch, but for now we are not spending too much time on it until it gets into the 10 day window and we can really start to track its development. There is significant cold air behind it and we maintain our thoughts of a good hard freeze event in its wake.
