Thursday, April 10, 2014

Current Conditions:
Temperature: 61°F
Feels Like: 61°F
Wind: Northwest @ 23 mph, Gusts @ 33 mph
Humidity: 18%
Pressure: 1007.6 mb é

A pleasant, yet windy day in the Chippewa Valley. The day started out with the potential for some morning precipitation. The extent of the cumulonimbus clouds were visible to the south of the Eau Claire area, though we did not receive any rainfall. As the day progressed the skies mostly cleared and the wind picked up pretty substantially. This trend will continue until around midnight, when wind direction is predicted to shift to the southwest. Once this occurs, showers are likely to form in the morning, as the winds will be tapping into a moist air mass to our south. Precipitation is predicted to be constant for most of the weekend.

This shows the pressure systems and fronts over the country. Currently, there is not a whole lot of interesting pressure developments occurring. There is a strong low pressure system north of the Great Lakes that seems to be the cause of the cold front moving through the area.

This water vapor map shows the current moist air masses over the eastern portion of the country.  The low pressure system to the north of the Great Lakes is currently drawing moisture from as far down as Kansas, which is exactly where the cold front moving through the country follows. 

This shows the current jet stream pattern over the country. There is nothing really significant about the jet stream pattern right now, with no significant troughs over the country.

This shows the current surface data for the Midwest. There is a high pressure system centered around the southwest corner of the viewing area. Cloud cover is more prominent over the eastern portion of the map, where the low pressure system is drawing a line of moisture.

This sounding from Minneapolis, Minnesota shows the current atmospheric conditions for the area. The LI and KI values show no significant atmospheric activity. The LCL is at 847 mb, suggesting that the partial cloud cover is more mid-level clouds.