The Final Post

Observation time: 11:35 am

Precipitation: None
Sky conditions: Overcast
Wind: 16 mph from the southwest
Temperature: 51 degrees

For my final post, I wanted to show you how you can relate temperature to the locations of various fronts. For example, the cold front that moved through our area overnight can be located by following the line of 70-80 degree temperature that starts to our east near Green Bay and ends in Texas. Now that we are on the back side of that front, things have cooled off considerably, while to the east of the front things are still quite warm. You can tell there is probably low pressure and another cold front in the northwest as well, as it is pretty chilly out there.

Today's Rant

Today we are going to be seeing cooler temperature than we have the past few days now that we are on the backside of the cold front that brought us some rain yesterday and overnight. High pressure should be moving in later on, making for some clearer conditions, although it won't be a whole lot warmer. We are seeing a fairly stiff breeze coming from a mostly southern direction which probably won't be helping our high temperature at all. As for the rest of the country, there is a long, well-defined line of showers and storms to the east of the leading edge of the cold front that we saw, and that precipitation is now falling from Lake Michigan to Louisiana. There are extremely scattered showers in the northwest and the mountains thanks to a separate cold front, while the middle of the country is mostly dry from high pressure. There is really a mixed bag of conditions today throughout the country.

Forecast for Tomorrow (My Final Forecast!)

Tomorrow, at least for the daytime hours, I expect things to clear up a bit as it looks as though we may be in a trough from a northern air mass sagging down into the area. There is going to be plenty of precipitation going on to the west because of the cold front that is currently located out there, but that should still take a little while to get to us. Temperatures may go back up some as well, as winds should remain out of the south. This will be providing even more moisture, however, that when mixed with the cold front (when it gets here) should mean a good chance of rain, but that might not happen until Sunday. Showers and storms from the cold front to our east should continue to impact the east coast and southeast, while out west, their cold front looks like it might bring snow in the Rockies and rain along the coast. Overall, it looks like another mixed bag kind of day, but in our area things should be fairly decent, at least during the day.

This will be my final blog post for this semester. I hope anyone who has actually been following it has enjoyed it. I have missed reporting days here and there for various reasons, but I always did my best to try and post something for you. I hope that you will take advantage of the links I have posted in the links page above, as they are all excellent places to get information if you would like to start forecasting for yourself instead of relying on the local "experts."