textproduct: Wilmington

SYNOPSIS

High pressure will provide dry weather and a warming trend for Monday and Tuesday. An upper level trough will move into the area for Wednesday and Thursday, bringing rain on Wednesday that will change to snow Wednesday night. Much cooler air is then expected for Thursday and Friday.

NEAR TERM /THROUGH TONIGHT/

Height rises will continue over the area overnight, with a gradual west-to-east erosion of the stratocumulus deck that has been in place for a while. Once these clouds clear out, mostly clear conditions are expected through the day, with just some high clouds on occasion.

With a mixed boundary layer today, diurnal southwesterly wind gusts of 20-30 MPH can be expected. Highs should be in the upper 30s to mid 40s.

SHORT TERM /TUESDAY/

Uneventful weather is expected Monday night, with lows in the upper 20s to lower 30s.

On Tuesday, an upper trough will begin to settle into the Great Lakes region, with a surface low tracking east across Lake Superior. An increasing pressure gradient, with a well-mixed boundary layer, will bring some 25-35 MPH wind gusts to the ILN CWA on Tuesday, particularly for the northern half of the forecast area. Some weak upper forcing will rotate around the upper trough into the area by late Tuesday afternoon. This may produce some very light precipitation, but moisture will remain quite limited over the ILN CWA, so precipitation chances through 00Z look very low.

LONG TERM /TUESDAY NIGHT THROUGH SUNDAY/

PoPs introduced back into the forecast Tuesday evening ahead of the next shortwave trough and associated surface cold front. The better forcing however arrives late overnight into Wednesday with the surface front, which is correlated with the highest PoPs. Expect precip Tuesday night into the beginning of Wednesday to fall as rain given the warmer thermal profiles. The cold front will begin to move through the fa Wednesday morning and begin to cool the atmosphere. As a result, snow will begin to mix in from west to east. The biggest feature to monitor with this system will be a secondary vort lobe through swings down from the Great Lakes region Wednesday night. Given the colder air mass now in place, this energy will help initiate snow showers across our fa. Ensembles from the Euro and GFS suggest fairly high confidence in accumulating snowfall, with the ensemble means suggesting a range of 0.5" to 2.0" of snow across our CWA (with the higher totals to the east). CAM guidance will help provide a little more insight on exact snow totals for the region, but the timing of snowfall will be favorable for sticking to roadways and thus having some travel impacts.

Periods of light snow will linger into the beginning of Thursday before the upper level energy ejects to the east. Arctic air mass settles into the region, with highs remaining in the 20s.

There will only be a brief lull in precip activity before another shortwave trough is expected to swing through our fa during the early part of the weekend. Still some timing differences amongst global models and ensembles, but the story here is that more accumulating snow will likely be on the way.

AVIATION /11Z MONDAY THROUGH FRIDAY/

VFR conditions are expected through the TAF period, as soon as the MVFR cloud deck finishes clearing out of Columbus.

SSW winds today are already beginning to increase, and by late morning through mid afternoon, some 20-25 knot gusts are expected. Winds will diminish again to under 10 knots tonight.

OUTLOOK...MVFR conditions are expected Wednesday through Thursday, with some snow possible Wednesday night into Thursday morning as well.

ILN WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

OH...None. KY...None. IN...None.