Dry weather continues today. A warm front lifted through the state yesterday, and south flow dominates today and tomorrow. This will promote the warmest temperatures of the season so far by the time we get into tomorrow afternoon. Winds will pick up a little more than what we saw yesterday, averaging 12-25 mph, which will be great for speeding the drying along over wettest areas, but will also hinder any needed spraying yet to do for burn down.
We actually are looking for less precipitation threat through Thursday and Friday. Thursday is still likely completely dry through the daytime hours, with only clouds building in the afternoon. After sunset we can see some scattered showers develop, especially over central and southern Indiana as we move toward sunrise Friday. Moisture totals still do not look all that impressive, with most areas at .25? or less. Coverage looks to be under 40%. The map shows a snapshot of Thursday evening just ahead of sunset?.not very impressive. Through the day Friday, we can?t rule out scattered showers from I-70 southward, but at this time, northern Indiana looks to stay dry, leading to another potential field work day. South of I-70 we can see another .1?-.4? of rain over about 60% of the area. If this pattern does verify, that would point to 4 more dry days in the north, while the south gets 2.5-3 full days of dry down yet.
The weekend looks to have its own batch of precipitation to work through still. Saturday starts off slow, with nothing of any major consequence until later in the afternoon we scattered showers and thunderstorms start to develop. However, through Sunday, we see a secondary, stronger surge of moisture that brings rain and heavier thunderstorms. Two day totals will be from .5?-1.25? with coverage at 90% of the state. The biggest portion of that will be from 5PM Saturday through Sunday evening.
Dry Monday and Tuesday with decent sunshine. Then we have a stronger system for Wednesday and Thursday. It starts benignly enough, with just minor moisture developing over the state next Wednesday, the 24th, but then strong low pressure moves in for Wednesday night and triggers moderate to heavy rains with strong thunderstorms. These may be out of the area by mid-morning Thursday, the 25th, but still, we think that combined rain totals can be half to 1.5? with coverage at nearly 100% of the state. Right now, the heaviest thunderstorms look like they may want to fire off Wednesday evening in western Indiana, and then in northern Indiana overnight.
In the extended period, the strength of the system for the 24th-25th will determine how we start things off. If the storm is as strong as we fear, it may bring some wrap around clouds and lingering moisture into the state through the 26th. However, this being a spring pattern, we think that thought process (advanced by at least 1 model) is likely to pessimistic. We prefer a drier period for Friday the 26th and into the start of the Memorial Day weekend. That dry period will be threatened from time to time through the 28th-30th, but only by scattered showers?nothing overly well-organized at this point. However, for the 31st into the 1st, we see a nice low moving through the great lakes that likely brings better organized showers to the state, with rain totals of .25?-.75?.
Temps through the end of the month will be mostly normal to above. We skew those temps to the largely above normal side of the scale here short term, but think temps will try and pull back closer to normal late in the week and especially this weekend as that strong system moves through.
