Friday, April 18, 2014

Current Conditions:
Temperature: 32°F
Feels Like: 26°F
Wind: East @ 6 mph
Humidity: 88%
Pressure: 1029.6 mb é

A cloudy but mild day in the Chippewa Valley and warm days ahead as we move into the weekend. Today, we should start to see the rise back to seasonal temperatures. A rather weak high pressure system is right over Wisconsin and winds are currently coming from the east, as the center of the high pressure system is directly to our north. As we head into the holiday weekend, we should expect a very favorable increase in temperature but storm potential for most of the weekend.

Florida is currently experiencing some intense storms with the potential for flooding down there. Up north, an interesting Accuweather story came out today about present ice cover of the Great Lakes in comparison to the last five years. This graph shows that the current level of ice cover will affect the coastal areas, especially, dropping temperatures.

This map shows the current pressure and frontal systems moving across the country. There is currently a string of high pressure systems over the central United States, sandwiched between two lines of low pressure systems on the east and west coasts. 

This graph shows the current ice coverage of the Great Lakes over the last five years. Usually the lakes are less than 5% covered by this time in the year. Currently, they are at 38% coverage. This will continue to affect coastal businesses by not allowing them to continue business. It will also cool the coastal cities substantially.

This shows the current jet stream pattern over the country. The string of high pressure systems coincides with the trough in the jet stream over the center of the country. 

This shows the current surface conditions over the Midwest. Cloudy conditions persist over most of the northern viewing area, while a weak low pressure system is centered over northwestern Wisconsin. Haze is very prevalent in the southwest quadrant of the viewing image.

This sounding shows the current atmospheric conditions for Minneapolis, Minnesota. There is not much going on in the area right now, as conditions are quite stable.

This sounding shows the current atmospheric conditions for Tampa Bay, Florida. The sounding for Tampa Bay is a little more interesting than the sounding for Minneapolis. We see a very unstable air parcel, with an LI value of -4.0 and the KI value of 40. This denotes significant atmospheric conditions with the chance for severe weather.