hawkeye_wx

Same here. I picked up 0.43" of rain, but the totals fell short of expectation as much of the action developed east and south. There was no lightning/thunder here. Much of today's action should also be south and east.

The euro is cutting off the eastern upper low farther west every run.

While there will be significant warming into the weekend for our eastern members, models have shown a trend toward merging the subtropical system and the upper midwest system as they reach the mid-Atlantic region, where it parks for a while next week and cools the temp somewhat for our far eastern members.

We were able to clear out later in the day and warm into the low to mid 50s with light wind. Tonight is the final night of 30s and Tuesday night is the final night of 40s. Late spring officially begins Thursday. I can finally start planting all the annual plants that have been parked inside the garage for days.

Models are all showing the cold pattern finally ending over the next few days. Warmth moves in Thursday and stays for good. The GFS has 80s here next week and the Euro is well into the 70s as well by late this week. The pattern may also become pretty stormy. The euro has 2-5" of rain across Iowa from day 4-7, extending eastward into the lakes as well.

Cedar Rapids officially hit 26º... here in town a couple degrees warmer. It's nice that we can shoot back to 50º by 10am, on the way to the low 60s.

Cyclone, I thought I was in the bulls-eye, but you have me beat, handily. I'm at 0.68", with another few hundredths to go. It has been a darn cold day.

It's rainy and 40º over here today.

If you have a lot of annuals to plant, like me, it's nice to be able to start chipping away at the planting chore. It's annoying having to haul a bunch of plants in and out of the garage, and in and out of the sun (trying to harden them off), every day. With the upcoming cold it will be another 1-2 weeks before I can even start planting the in-ground stuff.

The latest Euro has low to mid 40s for a high temp Friday/Saturday in Michigan, with three straight low temps in the upper 20s.

I'm a gardener. Let's not do this.

At least I was able to get a solid thundershower around midday... heard a few rumbles and picked up 0.26" of rain. I knew that would probably be it for the day.

For lunch today I went to the local Culver's. As I pulled into the line, a high-rider pickup truck drove by as it exited. The driver was a bearded guy with a big, white parrot perched on his shoulder. That's something you don't see every day.

A few days ago the models had this cold defo band pivoting over eastern Iowa all day today. Instead, northern Illinois gets it and over here in Iowa it's a beautiful day in the low 60s.

I went to Menards late this morning. The place was packed. About half the customers were wearing a mask.

Models have backed off of any cold, here at the west edge of the subforum, into early May. A few days ago they had a strong, wet system holding us in the 30s and 40s Saturday, but now that system will be more progressive and we should reach the 60s. The latest Euro has 60s and 70s every day except one through day ten.

We got stuck with clouds and showers this morning, but once that crap cleared we soared into the 70s.

Not a day goes by without 20-30 mph wind. One of the local mets said Cedar Rapids has had 20 mph gusts every day except one this month. The wind combined with the chilly temps has made it difficult to put all my plants outside.

The Euro is also showing this weekend system. If this verifies, folks from Iowa to Michigan would be stuck in the 30s and 40s with rain/mix and wind.

We may be done with the real cold stuff, but models are not very pretty for the lakes region the rest of the month. We get a warm day Wednesday, with a high in the 70s, and Thursday should be solid, but then it kinda turns kinda lousy again. The GFS and Euro both show a similar pattern... general wnw/nw flow, with disturbances riding southeast like clippers and then amping up as they turn east into the Ohio Valley. Farther into the lakes, like Michigan, you don't even get the brief midweek warmth. The Euro has you in 40s and 50s for the next ten days. Yuck.

That's a great photo. It reminds me of the movie 'Runaway Train'.

Man, this one is the textbook definition of a stat-padder. We picked up 3.5" of snow between midnight and 6am, while I slept, there was zero accumulation on the pavement, so no cleanup at all, and the snow will be totally gone by 1pm.

I forgot to mention that my 3.5" of snow had only 0.28" of liquid in it, so the ratio is 12.5 to 1. That's pretty good for mid April. It certainly helped that my area had perfect timing. All of our snow fell from 12-6am.