HOW SWEET IT IS, THEN WE PAY!

Beautiful winter weather was found around the Midwest Tuesday afternoon. Highs in general were 20-30 degrees above normal and a number of records were established. One place that's really been on a role is the Quad Cities (Moline to be specific). With a high of 69 Tuesday the city on the Mississippi had its 5th consecutive day with a record high!

Moline's reading of 74 back on the 19th was an all-time February record. Even more impressive, the Quad Cities and much of the Midwest is far from done. Wednesday is expected to be another record breaker with many spots vying for all-time February warmth. Here's what the EURO has for highs Wednesday.

With models consistently under forecasting max temperatures the past 5 days I suspect these numbers could be as much as 2-5 degrees too low.

In the graphic below you can see locations where highs are expected to be within 1 degree of records Wednesday afternoon. This would involve parts of 16-17 states around the middle of the nation.

Wednesday night a front sinks into Missouri and stalls. Thursday, a strong low develops along the thermal boundary and begins to wrap up. As it heads northeast rain, thunderstorms, and snow will break out and become widespread Thursday night.

Here's the surface low cutting into Iowa Thursday evening. Snow is extensive in the cold sector. Thunderstorms are shown ahead of the cold front from Iowa into Missouri.

The 0z GFS goes wild on snow in the upper Midwest showing total accumulations that look like this.

Some places in the warm sector are going to see some nice rains, especially by February standards. The GFS shows some amounts over 2 inches. That's twice what my local area sees the "entire" month of February. Take a look.

Of course, a storm like this is going to tap a nice reservoir of cold air. The backside looks cold and windy and at least for the time being, the springlike warmth will be put to bed. So sad, too bad! Roll weather...TS