DETROIT – As promised last week, much drier air arrived over the weekend, and what a difference it made.
One nice consequence about drier air is that the lower dewpoint temperatures allow nighttime temperatures to fall farther, and temps in the low to mid 60s (16 to 18 degrees Celsius) to start our Monday sure felt good.
Expect partly cloudy skies today -- a real pretty sky, in fact. Highs in the upper 70s to low 80s (26 to 28 degrees Celsius) with comfortable humidity won’t be too hard to take. A light northwest breeze will continue the feed of dry air into the region.
Today’s sunrise was at 6:09 a.m., and today’s sunset is at 9:09 p.m.
Mostly clear tonight, with lows in the upper 50s to low 60s (15 to 17 degrees Celsius), and calm air.
Mostly sunny to partly cloudy on Tuesday, with highs in the mid 80s (29 to 30 degrees Celsius).
Mostly clear and warmer, unfortunately, Tuesday night, with lows in the upper 60s (20 degrees Celsius).
Mostly sunny to partly cloudy on Wednesday, and the humidity will start creeping back up -- not oppressive, but noticeably higher than earlier in the week. Highs are also continue their expected climb this week, topping out in the upper 80s (31 degrees Celsius).
Showers and thunderstorms are possible Wednesday night, and new computer model data suggests a troubling trend: perhaps only scattered showers and storms, as opposed to the solid band of much-needed rain that the overnight models suggested earlier today. Muggy lows near 70 degrees (21 degrees Celsius). Here we go again with that awful sleeping weather.
Scattered showers and storms start our day on Thursday, with skies becoming partly cloudy during the afternoon. Highs in the mid to upper 80s (30 to 31 degrees Celsius). We’d better get some rain, because rain chances the rest of the week are somewhat chancy and, if some of us miss out, then some of us will trend abnormally dry, or even in moderate drought by the end of the week.
Partly cloudy Thursday night, with lows in the upper 60s (20 degrees Celsius).
Partly cloudy on Friday, with highs near 90 degrees (32 degrees Celsius).
Warm and muggy Friday night, with lows near 70 degrees (21 degrees Celsius).
Weekend outlook
The weekend ahead will be hot and humid -- that part I can say with high confidence. The big question is: will we get a thunderstorm? The jet stream will be riding along the northern U.S. border, which puts us close to little upper level disturbances zipping across the country. Just a slight displacement farther north or south decreases or increases our chances for scattered, mainly afternoon thunderstorms.
Today, the ECMWF model migrates that jet stream farther north on Sunday, which would give us a scattered thunderstorm chance Saturday, and only an isolated chance on Sunday. The GFS model, however, has that jet slightly farther south…hence the scattered storm chance each day. I just don’t have enough data right now to pin this down, so stay with me through the week and I’ll get more specific as soon as I have a better handle on things. Bottom line: there’s a better chance for us to remain hot and dry this weekend, but thunderstorm chances are NOT zero.
Regardless of the thunderstorm chance, expect highs in the low to mid 90s (32 to 34 degrees Celsius), with overnight lows in the low to mid 70s (21 to 23 degrees Celsius). The humidity will make it feel like 95 to 100 degrees (35 to 38 degrees Celsius). Both days will be very hot, and Sunday will be the hotter of the two days.