SUMMERY SURGE STARTS SUNDAY
What you are looking at below are the projected high temperatures Monday afternoon. The 80 degree line looks to make it through the majority of my area. This is part of a summery surge models are in good agreement on beginning Sunday, lasting through much of Wednesday of next week.
The catalyst for the warmth is another vigorous trough that digs into the Rockies late in the weekend. The highly amplified flow will likely bring the warmest readings of the year so far to many.
Temperature departures in my local area may be more than 20 degrees above normal. In parts of NW and NC Iowa, readings more than 30 degrees above the norms are indicated. That's a serious flirtation with summer!
The GFS projects a high of 82 in the Quad Cities Monday.
If the GFS verifies, that would be the first official 80 degree high of 2024, about a week ahead of the average date, which is April 20th. In Moline, we have been close a couple of times already, with two 79 degree days to date.
Along with the warmth, moisture will also find its way into the pattern by Monday and Tuesday. Dew points are shown hitting 60+ which would be the first time this season the air will have that muggy feel. Water vapor, indicated below, is shown reaching 1.50 inches. That's about 200 percent higher than normal values.
The mild air and increased moisture do point to thunderstorm weather when forcing comes in to play. There's a chance a few storms could fire Monday night along a nearly stationary boundary in the north. Chances increase Tuesday as a wave lifts out of the Plains, sending a cold front into the existing instability. Timing and positioning of fronts and energy will dictate the strength of any storms. Where they do develop, the high moisture levels could lead to some locally heavy storms. We will know more on that in a couple of days when mesocale details become somewhat clearer. One thing is for sure, warmer weather is on the way!
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Before the warm-up, a storm system is going to phase Thursday just to the east of the region. The consolidation of the northern and southern streams will energize the system and cause it to form a deformation zone that, combined with cold air advection, brings clouds and showers into the region Thursday afternoon and night. These will be light and somewhat scattered in nature. They should be out of the area by morning Friday. The primary heavier rain band Thursday looks to stay just southeast of my area, with the more significant amounts found in the SE half of Illinois, especially SE of a line from St. Louis to about Chicago. Here's what models are suggesting for rain totals through midday Friday.
The EURO
The GFS
The HRRR
NW winds will increase later Thursday into Friday morning from the NW, pulling in cooler air, but not before highs Thursday reach the upper 50s to near 60. Most spots will remain in the 50s Friday on the storms' backside.
The system does have a nice kicker, which means it moves right along and the cool air has a fairly brief stay. Winds are already returning to the SW Saturday, which initiates the rapid warm-up that builds this weekend. The Climate Prediction Center shows the warmth focused on the central U.S. April 14th-18th. I'm all in.
The bottom line is our weather goes downhill today and early Friday before making major and noteworthy improvement Saturday through at least Tuesday. Roll weather...TS
