A rather widespread low- pressure system is making its way through the Southern Plains and into the Mississippi Valley and Midwest tonight causing thunderstorms in the South and rain in the Midwest. The outer edges of this cyclone will also bring possible snow to Wisconsin and Michigan and a possible freezing drizzle to areas of the Northeast by Thursday morning. The thunderstorms and showers associated with this system may produce flash flooding along the Gulf Coast causing potentially major destruction to the area. Moving into Thursday afternoon and evening this system will drench the East Coast with rain and some wintry mixes further north. The good news is as the remnants of this system pass over the East Coast late Thursday night the Midwest and Central Plains will be left with calm and clear conditions as a center of high pressure builds up behind it. However, the South isn’t quite as lucky as another low -pressure system lines up right behind the first and brings rain from the Southwest extending along the Gulf Coast and into northern Florida for Friday. The following graphic is valid for Friday at midnight and the blue colors indicated 6-hour accumulated precipitation. As you can see the rain leaves the East Coast late Thursday and the Midwest and Central Plains stay dry to start the day Friday.
For Thursday in Champaign-Urbana, we will see temperatures in the 40s with a daytime high of 43°F and an overnight low of 33°F with a WNW wind ranging from 7-17mph. We will start the day off mostly cloudy with some possible rain showers or drizzle, but after the early morning hours the clouds will move out and the remainder of the day will be mostly sunny. Friday we will flirt with 50 degrees with a high of 47°F. No complaints here! However, despite the warmer temperatures during the day, we will start off Friday with temperatures as cold as 27 °F. Winds will be from the SW at 6-16mph with mostly sunny skies throughout the day.
My forecasted high temperature for Thursday was 3 degrees colder than the actual high of 46°F, while my forecasted low was slightly too cold with the actual low dropping to 30°F. The possible rain showers I mentioned did occur accumulating .25" of rain during the day. The winds on Thursday were from the NW with an average wind speed of 9.8 mph, slower and more westerly than I had expected. On Friday my high was a little low as the temperature did reach above 50 at 51°F. While my low temperature for Friday was 2 degrees colder than the verified low of 25°F. The winds were more southeasterly than southwesterly but were between 6-16 mph and skies were mostly sunny throughout the day.
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