Beau Dodson's WeatherTalk Blog

.

It isn’t very often in May that the weatherman can breathe easily.  This is our peak time of the year for severe thunderstorms and tornadoes.

With this cool air, however, we can all relax.  We aren’t going to have severe thunderstorms and tornadoes with this pattern.

The weekend was dominated by a large upper-level cut-off low.  These cut-off lows are removed from the jet stream.  They tend to move slowly or not at all.

They bring daily clouds, cool temperatures, and scattered showers.  That summed up the weekend for most locations.

You can see it on the visible satellite.  Spinning over us all weekend.  Rotating counter-clockwise.

.

That system will slowly move off to the east today.

We will still have some clouds in the region.  There could still be some spotty light showers across mainly southern Illinois and western Kentucky.

It is cool this morning.  Check out the 6 am temperatures.    Some locations are in the forties.   For me, that is a bit chilly. However, I did sleep with my windows open!

.

Temperatures today will rise into the sixties across most of the area.  Perhaps a few spots hit the 70 mark (where there is a bit more sunshine).

Temperatures will moderate into the 70s tomorrow through Friday.

Another upper-level low will find itself cut off over the lower Mississippi Valley this week.  This will make for fresh forecast headaches.

A lot of meteorologists call these upper-level lows a weatherman’s woe.  They are tricky to forecast.  This last one was certainly a pain.  Remember, at one point, the entire weekend was dry.  Then, with each passing day, we had to adjust rain chances upward.

Here is the weekend cut-off on the GFS 500 MB vorticity map.

You can see it over our region.

Here is what the next one looks like.  Not quite as impressive as the first one.

You can also still see the first one moving off to the northeast (over New England and the northeast).

.

This next one will be centered over Arkansas.

From 24 hours ago, the chances of rain have come down just a tad.

They are looking more in line with 20% to 40% chances from Tuesday night through Friday.  Maybe even Saturday.

Peak chances are currently forecast for Wednesday and Thursday.

It won’t rain all the time.  It won’t rain everywhere every day.  But, there will be clouds in our region this week and some scattered showers.  An isolated rumble of thunder, perhaps, although lightning chances appear relatively small.

Again, no severe weather concerns.

If you have outdoor plans this week, then I would monitor updates.

.

Double-click the animation to enlarge it.

GFS model.

.

Here is the NAM model.

.

.