WABBLES has enjoyed a warm and sunny week to this point, perhaps the last vestiges of our stagnant summer-like pattern. As we roll through mid-October, Mother Nature is sending the opening salvo of a more active pattern to come for the second half of the month.
One More Nice Day: Friday and Friday Night
We’ll get to spend one more day under the influence of our departing ridge, and conveniently, it happens to be the last day of the work week!
After a cooler morning start in the lower to middle 50s, continued southerly flow combined with sunshine will allow highs to get back up into the lower 80s during the afternoon hours.
However, that southerly flow is going to continue to increase the moisture content in the atmosphere, which should lead to increasing high cloudiness through the day and into the evening hours. By no means will it be a bad day, but skies may not be as brilliantly blue as they’ve been throughout this week.
Overnight, mid and high level clouds will continue to overspread the region as moisture continues to stream in from the south and west. In any case, a good evening on tap for high school football throughout the region! The cloud cover will moderate lows quite a bit overnight, with temperatures only making it down into the lower 60s.
Weekend Storm Potential: Saturday and Sunday
We’ve been enjoying a rather quiet weather pattern recently with little rain (well “enjoying,” I feel ya, farmers!) and warm, late summer-like temperatures. However, typically when we get this warm this time of year, we can be in for a bumpy ride.
The jet stream is finally starting to buckle south again, bringing wind energy back into play for the first time in awhile.
Troughing moving across the country will help generate a strong low pressure system across the upper Mississippi Valley that will quickly move up into Canada. However, a secondary low will form along that boundary’s trailing front across the eastern plains and into the midwestern states.
That low pressure will help pull in warmer and more moist air from the Gulf as it drags a front through the Mississippi Valley on Saturday. This will allow showers and thunderstorms to quickly blossom out to our west across the Ozarks. These could be strong to severe out that way.
For us, during the day on Saturday, we’ll likely start off with some sunshine, allowing temperatures to surge up into the lower to perhaps even middle 80s. However, clouds will likely start to surge in as we head later into the day ahead of the storms that pop out west.
Those storms are currently expected to start moving into the region as we head later into Saturday evening and Saturday night. The ingredients are there for a lower-end severe weather threat. We have quite a bit of wind energy as you go higher up in the atmosphere, however, our instability values, or fuel for strong/severe thunderstorms, are in question.
The later these storms are, the less likely they are to be severe, but it’s something we’ll continue to watch closely through the weekend. The most likely severe weather threat here is going to be for the potential for brief damaging wind gusts in excess of 60 mph, along with some dangerous lightning. In these scenarios, you can never completely rule out a brief weak tornado (that can still do damage!) but that threat is much lower.
Temperatures will stagnate as the rain and storms push through, with clouds and backside showers keeping lows not far from 60º or so.
And we’ve still got to get the cold front through here on Sunday!
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Storms late Saturday and into the early hours of Sunday will have taken care of any instability in the atmosphere, but any sunshine could bubble a few more showers and storms into the afternoon. The big story is going to be the breezy conditions!
We’ll see gusty northerly breezes on the order of 20-30 mph, which should more than usher in some cooler air for the afternoon hours.
Despite that, we should still get up into the upper 60s to lower 70s for daytime highs…and that’s not with a ton of sunshine!
However, things get chilly quickly with cold and dry air filtering in behind our front, clear skies will allow lows to tumble back into the lower 40s. And if the wind calms down, we could see some upper 30s.
Into Next Week: Active Pattern Continues
We’ll get a nice break into the day on Monday as a brief area of high pressure works back into the region. That should allow plenty of sunshine into the picture as we head into the afternoon hours. That should also allow highs to get back to seasonable levels, with readings making it into the upper 60s to lower 70s. Clear skies but milder southerly winds, however, will keep it milder into the overnight, with lows in the lower 50s.
That’s ahead of another dynamic disturbance that will push into the region late into the day on Tuesday. Models have been waffling on the strength and locations of the low, but they do agree that said low will attempt to bring milder air into the region, with highs getting up into the upper 60s to near 70º again.
However, while warmer air moves in, moisture is going to be a tougher proposal. We’ll still be on the lookout for showers, and perhaps some storms into the afternoon and evening. But at this point it doesn’t look like what’s on tap for this weekend.
Beyond that, it looks like we’ll take a turn toward a cooler pattern as we head toward the second half of next week, barring any systems sneaking up on us like this weekend. Highs should slowly warm through the middle and upper 60s through next week, with overnight lows back in the 40s!
That’s it for me for now! You can always keep up with the latest on all of our social media platforms. Have a tremendous day and a great weekend!