IF AT FIRST YOU DON'T SUCCEED...
Some fine June weather was in place around the Midwest Monday. Dry weather (unwanted in some parts of the region) prevailed areawide along with smoke from Canadian wild fires. The smoke is apparent in spots where you see the milky look to the sky. It's especially noticeable from Iowa into the Great Lakes.
Were it now for the smoke skies would have been mostly sunny as a major push of dry air came surging in from the east. It certainly felt substantially better than Sunday when dew points were in the low 60s below.
Today dew points were as much as 25 degrees lower indicating a massive drop in available water vapor.
The dry air put an end to the random thunderstorms that played around in select locations over the weekend. Some select spots had more than 2 inches of rain in healthy downpours. Notice the bulk of the heaver rains going back to Friday evening were focused on a weak boundary extending southeast from Waterloo to Iowa City and Burlington.
That left many other parts of the region high and dry. Some areas are now working on more than 2 consecutive days with out a raindrop. If none falls Tuesday at the NWS office in Davenport if will be the 18th consecutive day without measurable rain. Over the past 29 days just 0.15" has been recorded there.
There is the old saying, if at first you don't succeed try, try again. That's exactly what we're going to do later Tuesday and perhaps early Wednesday across the far south when another backdoor cold front arrives from the northeast. Initially the day starts low on moisture but its lurking not far away to the southwest. As the morning unfolds, it surges northeast where it pools ahead of the front which is on a track to intercept it. Moisture levels by early evening have soared greater than 1.50" in the north.
That sets up a skinny CAPE on the 3k NAM that reaches 2,000 j/kg just ahead of the front. That is a respectable level of instability and should be good enough for scattered thunderstorm development in the north later in the afternoon or evening.
Shear is not overly great and is most concentrated at higher levels. As a result severe weather is not expected to be widespread but a couple strong (pulse type) storms with gusty winds will be possible in the most vigorous updrafts during peak heating through the evening. Some localized heavy downpours and lightning would be the bigger concern. Coverage is questionable and like with recent storms, this should be a hit and miss event with some spots logging an inch of rain and others nothing at all. Good luck will come in handy to those of you in need of rain. Here's what models are currently suggesting for rain potential. Most of this comes later Tuesday and Tuesday night.
The 3k NAM
The EURO
The GFS
Whatever happens the backdoor front zips along and delivers another round over very dry air and cooler temperatures. Highs will go from the low to mid 80s Tuesday to the 70s in most spots Thursday. Dew point could again fall into the 30s which means rain is off the table Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.
A strong upper level system is depicted to develop and deepen over the Midwest this weekend. It carries with it another chance of scattered showers and storms. Timing and mesoscale details yet unknown will determine where or how much rain might fall.
One this seems likely and that is a healthy push of cool air by June standards. Highs could be confined to the upper 60s to low 70s Sunday. For sure another dry air mass enters the picture at that time. These are the 10 day temperature departures for the period June 8th-June 18th. Cool is the rule.
There you have it, a real push pull pattern dominated by an active NW flow. Hopefully we can squeeze out some much need rain later today or tonight for those areas that missed out last weekend. Roll weather...TS
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