Wednesday and Thursday will be warm and dry in the South with some possible thunderstorms in the Southern Plains. Scattered thunderstorms track along the Central Plains along a weak cold front and move into the Ohio Valley and Mid-Atlantic states early Wednesday. This tracking surface low will also bring rain showers to the Northeast and will turn to snow in Maine. Simultaneously, the Pacific Northwest and western Montana will be hit with more rain and mountain snow as an upper-level shortwave trough moves through Wednesday. The real story however, is these abnormally large temperature departures from normal. The reason the Northern to Central Plains are so much warmer than normal is the lack of snow cover. Check out this map of today’s snow cover compared to March 27th last year. What a difference!
After a slight break from the unusually high temperatures we’ve been having in Champaign-Urbana, we are returning to the 70s with a high of 75°F on Wednesday and an overnight low of 47°F as a weak cold front passes through Wednesday evening. Winds will be calming from the WSW becoming NW at 8-22mph. We may also see some isolated thunderstorms possibly becoming severe this evening ending early Wednesday morning. Nevertheless, as soon as the risk of thunderstorms clears out tomorrow we will enjoy mostly sunny skies for the remainder of the day. Thursday temperatures will cool off a bit, but still remain above average with a high of 62°F and a morning low of 41°F. Thursday will be another sunny day with an ENE wind at 8-12mph.
Wednesday's actual high was 3 degrees warmer than my forecasted high of 75°F, while the overnight low came in at 49°F, only 2 degrees warmer than my forecasted low. Skies were mostly sunny on Wednesday with a NW wind averaging just under what I foresaw at 13.4 mph. The risk of thunderstorms moved out very early Wednesday leaving the day completely dry. For Thursday, My temperature forecast was pretty accurate with the actual high only 1 degree cooler than my forecasted high and the actual low only 1 degree warmer than my forecasted low of 41°F. Nevertheless, we didn't see as much sunshine as expected with partly cloudy skies throughout the day and a small rain shower accumulating .02" of rain. Meanwhile, winds were primarily from the E, but became slightly ESE averaging between 8-12 mph as I had forecasted.
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