DETROIT – Happy Friday!
Will it rain on Mother’s Day, or won’t it? I’ll dive deep into that in a moment. But first, we need to discuss a rather interesting weather day today.
Today’s sunrise was at 6:21 a.m.
As I’ve explained all week, the air aloft on Friday is going to be very cold -- near record cold, in fact. It’ll be below freezing only 5000 feet above the surface! So any of the more robust showers will likely have pea-size hail. You may even see some lightning and thunder in those showers with the strongest updrafts. But don’t worry about severe weather: The hail will be nowhere near large enough, and the wind aloft is light, so we won’t see any strong gusts. So sit back and enjoy the show this afternoon!
Start watching the real-time radar on the free Local4Casters weather app late this morning and early this afternoon to see those showers pop up, and track their movement on the app’s FutureCast, which projects what you see on radar into the future so you know where it’s going.
Friday highs will reach the mid-to-upper 50s early in the afternoon before leveling off and even falling as the showers move in. Southwest winds will blow at 8 to 13 mph.
Friday’s sunset is at 8:40 p.m.
Once the showers end Friday night, skies will clear. Lows will be in the mid-to-upper 30s, which means that some frost is possible in our typically coldest rural spots well outside of the Urban Heat Island. Northwest wind will move at 10 to 15 mph.
Sunny Saturday
Saturday won’t be as warm as last weekend, but it won’t be a bad day, either.
Expect mostly sunny to partly cloudy skies, with highs in the upper 50s.
Thank goodness for that sun, because at 9 a.m. I’ll be emceeing this season’s opening of the Farmington Farmers’ Market on Grand River just east of Farmington Road. It can’t rain on a meteorologist emceeing an outdoor event, right?
Clouds will increase later Saturday night, with lows in the low 40s.
Mother’s Day forecast
While there are still big differences amongst some of the computer models, it unfortunately appears that rain will develop on Sunday. The one thing I can say for sure is that rain chances increase the farther south you are, and decrease the farther north you are. Highs Sunday will be in the mid 50s.
For those who will ask why there’s so much uncertainty only three days ahead of time: The upper level system that will develop the approaching surface system is still over the east Pacific. Once it crosses the west coast later today, it will be studied by our upper air weather balloon network, called radiosondes, and once that data gets into the computer models, they will develop a consensus. So there, now you know.
Fortunately, the news does get better next week as we should see plenty of sunshine, with temperatures starting an upward trend by mid week. In fact, by next weekend, we could be back in the 70s!
It appears that next week’s one chance of rain is Thursday, and that’s just a maybe right now.
Remember to download the FREE Local4Casters weather app -- it’s easily one of the best in the nation. Just search your app store under WDIV and it’s right there available for both iPhones and Androids! Or click the appropriate link below.