Tuesday Forecast: One more warm day before cooler, wetter weather arrives
NORTH PLATTE, Neb. (KNOP) - If you’ve enjoyed the summer weather over the past few days, we have one more warm day before more seasonal, fall-like weather settles into the area later this week with rain chances finally returning to the forecast.
More sunshine is expected to at least start the day on Tuesday, though as a cold front begins to creep into the area from the west and an upper level low begins to move out of the desert southwest, clouds will begin to increase into the afternoon. By Tuesday night, skies should become mostly cloudy and we’ll begin to see a chance for some scattered showers and thunderstorms across western Nebraska.
Wednesday will be the transition day this week as a cold front moves across the state. As the front pushes through the area, scattered to widespread showers and thunderstorms are expected to develop along the front which will bring much needed rain to the area. The front is then forecast to slow and stall out across eastern parts of the state, which will keep rain chances in the forecast into the second half of the week with another disturbance moving through the area this weekend that will keep rain chances in the forecast. It’s been quite some time, but it looks like some widespread, beneficial rainfall will be possible from Wednesday evening and through the day on Thursday. Unfortunately, models right now are keeping the bulk of this rainfall just to the east of the coverage area with eastern and central parts of the state potentially seeing 1.00″ to 2.00″ of rain over the next week while western Nebraska is expected to see lesser amounts. In fact, parts of the Panhandle may only see a few hundredths of an inch of rain over the next week. The Sandhills and into southwestern Nebraska is expecting see perhaps a few tenths to a 0.50″ of rain over the next week.
Temperatures will be transitioning from more summer like readings to more seasonal, fall like numbers as the front moves through. We’ll see one more hot, mainly dry day on Tuesday with highs in the upper 80s. The increasing cloud cover should keep temperatures from eclipsing the 90° barrier for most.
As the front arrives on Wednesday, we’ll see one of those “transition” days that we often see in the spring and in the fall seasons. High temperatures in the Panhandle will only reach the upper 50s, while highs across eastern Nebraska will still reach the mid 80s by Wednesday afternoon.
Temperatures past Wednesday should settle into the upper 60s to low 70s for the remainder of the work week, about where we should be for late September and early October. Overnight lows should be a bit cooler over the next week as well, settling into the upper 40s to near 50°. Rainfall chances will hang around for most of the next week with daily chances for rain, though again, most of it looks to be fairly light with heavier rainfall amounts as you move to the east over the next week.
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