A COLD START TO A WARMING END

Happy weekend everyone! Meteorologist Nick Stewart here. We have a typical early-spring week ahead of us with a rather big swing in temperatures expected. As I alluded to last weekend, a strong storm system did form and it brought an incredible amount of precipitation for the southern US.

Over the last three days (Thursday-Saturday) more than 10" of rain fell across portions of Arkansas, Missouri and Kentucky! Meanwhile it has been a quiet, dry stretch of weather after thunderstorms early in the week. Much of Iowa picked up less than 0.10" of precipitation.

In the short term the weather remains rather dry in the Midwest. There's one rather quick-moving system that could bring light showers to the area Wednesday and Wednesday night. Overall amounts are quite low given the lack of moisture available behind a rather strong cold front early this week. Speaking of which, let's talk about the CHILL that will be in place to kick off the week, and the importance of the wind speed and direction that will dominate the story.

Monday, the cold front surges through the Midwest bringing rather blustery north winds topping 30mph. This will transport some rather cold air, dry to the region.

By the time Tuesday morning rolls around, it will be a rather cold start for the area. Under a ridge/area of surface high pressure, winds will lighten out of the north under clear skies and the temperatures will plummet into the low/mid 20s for eastern Iowa and northern Illinois (and much of the Great Lakes for that matter).

For temperatures to drop below 28° (frost threshold) in the Quad Cities, winds historically originate from the north/northwest in the month of April, and that will be the case this time as well. Winds will be calming through early Tuesday but the damage already has been done. You can see in the graph above called a wind rose, the historical percentage of the wind direction and speed for temperatures being at or below 28 in April are strongly favoring northwesterly.

If you already got a start on planting (risky business in the Midwest) definitely make sure to bring those planters inside, or plan on covering sensitive outdoor plants as the threat of frost is a concern!

Temperatures will gradually moderate through the week and into next weekend. Highs Monday will struggle to climb into the mid-40s, but by Thursday and Friday highs will likely push near 60/low 60s with 70s a possibility next weekend.

Sunday, ensemble guidance shows a large area of positive temperature anomalies across the central United States. Afternoon temperatures could be 5-10° above normal for this time of year - some good signs of spring!

Going back to wind direction - Saturday and Sunday will feature winds coming in out of the south. It could become quite breezy in the afternoon around 20-30mph, especially Sunday.

To get surface temperatures over 65° in the Quad Cities in April you almost always need a southerly/southwesterly wind - and a gusty one at that - according to historical records.

You can tell a lot about the weather coming if you know nothing other than the wind direction most of the time, especially in the transition seasons of spring and autumn.

MEANWHILE IN ROCKET LAND

Meanwhile in Florida along the Space Coast we had a rather exciting start to last week. On Monday March 31, the FRAM2 launch headed to space carrying four astronauts into orbit around the Earth. The weather was tricky! Notice in the photo above, the rocket is launching over a thunderstorm which was offshore. You can see the cloud-to-ground (well, ocean) lightning strikes! Such a stunning launch to watch as the whole horizon was lighting up.

This was the first time humans traveled over the North and South Poles of the Earth in space. The mission also conducted research into the Northern Lights and space weather. The bright launch took off against a horizon filled with lightning.

I used the lightning detection network located on the Kennedy Space Center and the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station called Cape MERLIN (Mesoscale Eastern Range Lightning Information Network) and plotted all the lightning that took place between 4-11 p.m. In those seven hours there were more than 17,000 cloud-to-ground lightning strikes around central Florida. They don't call us the lightning capital of the US for nothing!

Have a great day everyone!

-Meteorologist Nick Stewart