Public weather briefing
After a mild and rainy beginning of the week, conditions will begin to clear up later on in the week. The rainfall we experienced early this morning will have fully moved through making way for some chance of sun by Thursday. Low temperatures over the weeknights will remain around the upper 40s, dipping down into the upper 30s by the weekend. Daytime high temperatures will slowly decrease into the weekend with partly sunny skies. Rain is unlikely this weekend, but winds will be expected to pick up.Forecast
Tonight. Clearing with winds from the northeast around 11 kts. Lows in the upper 40s.
Wednesday. Mostly cloudy small chance of light rain. Highs in the mid 50s.
Wednesday Night. Cloudy and cool with light northerly winds. Low in the mid 40s.
Thursday. Sun begins to appear. Moderate southwesterly winds of about 7 kts. High 65. Low around 48.
Friday. Clouds move back through the Madison area. Westerly winds about 17 kts. High 56. Low around 44.
Outlook for Saturday through Monday. Mostly cloudy with some sun. No significant chance of rain. Highs in the low to mid 50s on Saturday and Sunday and around 50 on Monday. Lows consistently in the upper 30s. [CONFIDENCE: MEDIUM]
Forecast Discussion
The cyclone has moved south of Madison and will avoid most of the Wisconsin area. Overcast conditions remain until Thursday. Winds begin to pick up on Friday as a separate cyclone moves across Canada to the north of Minnesota/Wisconsin. There is no significant rain expected for the rest of the week. (average daily high temperature for later in the week around 60F; low 40F).
Our confidence for the weeks forecast was dampened by the remnants of the surface cyclone bringing a possible chance for rain in the next day. There is also a forming cyclone to the north in Ontario, but does not indicate any bands of rain forming down in Wisconsin. We expect a dry and cool week ahead for the Madison area.
Rachel Down
Samuel Hartwick
The rain we originally expected moved through quicker than anticipated, however the clouds looming over us remained longer. The weekend cleared out significantly, especially today (Saturday). Much of the rainfall associated with the cyclone was along the two fronts: the cold that stretched parallel with the east coast, and the warm that spread northeast into Canada. However this rain was not exactly what Madison saw. Ours was more likely due to the positive advection of vorticity and upper level divergence from accelerations in the wind. Our discussion noted these differences and pointed out the improved weather later on in the week. As it stands, we should still be expecting nice weather for the last two days of our forecast as we stated in our update.
ReplyDeleteSam and Rachel - Overall, I think you both did a nice job in putting together the two forecasts that you were responsible for. Your reflection is also nicely written and reflects some of the dynamical processes that facilitated the production of precipitation over the course of your forecast period. However, I would challenge you to include a bit more of these dynamical discussions into your forecast discussion. For example, you discuss the formation of a cyclone north of the US/Canadian border, but what are the dynamical processes driving this cyclogenesis? Is it a trough, a jet stream, etc? In addition, you suggest that it looked unlikely for precipitation to form over our area. What allows you to make this statement? Ultimately, I am extremely satisfied by your ability to pick up on the dynamical features of interest during the forecast period, but I think adding in that additional detail into your discussions will only boost your next blog posts!
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