BUCKLE UP, BIG SWINGS AHEAD...

This is one of those weeks where there won't be much precipitation (outside of one day), but there will plenty of weather changes when it comes to temperatures.

The culprit in all this will be a fast moving progressive flow that starts the Midwest mild, turns it sharply colder, then moderates it again in the span of 5 days.

Here's the meteograms from 4 cities showing the coming swings in this order...Cedar Rapids, Minneapolis, Chicago, and St. Louis.

Here in my area, we go from a high of 46 in Cedar Rapids Monday to a low of 14 Thursday and then on to a high of 53 Friday. St. Louis is even more extreme going from a high of 64 Monday to a low of 26 Thursday and back to a high of 62 Friday. That's not so odd in March but it's a bit early for such springlike extremes the first week of February.

The only decent storm of the week ripples across the Midwest Monday night and Tuesday. As it crosses Iowa it will be moisture deprived so rain will be limited west of the Mississippi.

However, as the storm deepens on its track northeast the system is much wetter. In fact, some thunderstorms are even possible in parts of Illinois and points east. Here's the rainfall forecast from the GFS.

The SPC outlook has at least a slight risk of severe weather at the storm intensifies.

The snow with this system will be well to the north over the upper Midwest where the proper forcing and thermal profiles exist. The GFS has this for snowfall from the storm.

The EURO has this for accumulations.

Buckle up, it's going to be a wild 5 days, at least in terms of temperatures! Roll weather...TS