It’s been an unusually warm last ten days or so across much of the country, and that trend will continue for most locations in the eastern half of the nation much of this week. An example of this is at Chicago-Midway, where they’ve seen five straight days of 80 degrees or higher, easily a new record for them in March….and their normal high today is 49 degrees!
Since it’s rather cool-to-cold in the west, the atmosphere has a way of trying to make things equal, and that usually comes in the way of thunderstorms. Sure enough, there will be widespread thunderstorms in the middle of the country, where the colder air meets the very warm air. The ingredients will also be in place for severe weather and heavy rain from the Midwest down into Texas, with only very slow movement of the system towards the east through the week.
Here are this week’s weather highlights:
- A very stormy Monday and Tuesday for the central and southern Plains, with numerous thunderstorms, and a good chance of severe weather with rather high potential for strong winds and hail, as well as heavy rain totals. This includes Kansas City, Omaha, Des Moines, Wichita, Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, & Houston.
- The same weather system will only very slowly move east by Wednesday and Thursday, with the best chances at showers and thunderstorms, including possibly some heavy rain and strong storms, taking place across parts of the Mississippi Valley, Ohio Valley, and Midwest (New Orleans, Little Rock, Jackson, Nashville, Memphis, St. Louis, Chicago-Midway, Milwaukee, Des Moines, & Minneapolis-St. Paul).
- The system weakens by Thursday and Friday, so that by the time it moves further east into the Southeast and Great Lakes, coverage of showers and thunderstorms is more isolated, including at Atlanta.
- The west will be where the cool weather will be, especially to start out the week. Temperatures will be below normal over all of the west through about mid week, with warming the second half of the week. There will also be some scattered rain showers around San Diego and Phoenix Monday, and possibly some snow showers at Salt Lake City Monday and Tuesday.
- While there may eventually be some showers make it to the Northeast by next weekend, overall it will be very mild and dry much of the week, including at Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, New York City, Newark, Long Island-MacArthur, and across New England.
