DETROIT – First and foremost, before getting to the forecast, I want to give a big shoutout to all of the DTE Energy linemen (and those who came in from out of state to help) for their continued efforts to get everybody's power back on.
I know that some people still don't have power, but this is a most daunting task given the expansive nature of last Friday's severe weather event. The 16-hour days you folks are working certainly haven't gone unnoticed. THANK YOU.
Follow me on Twitter: @PaulGrossLocal4
Forecast:
Mostly clear skies this evening will become partly cloudy later tonight. Lows in the upper 50s. Wind becoming calm.
Partly cloudy on Tuesday, and a very pleasant day on tap with highs reaching the upper 70s. Note: a weak upper level disturbance tracking across the Great Lakes probably won't be enough to trigger any showers Tuesday afternoon, so there's only a very slight chance that we'll see any raindrops. At this point, it appears that the atmosphere will be too dry to generate precipitation. Light southeast wind.
Mostly clear Tuesday night, with lows in the low 60s.
Wednesday is the day I've had a bull's eye on for the past few days. We'll start the day dry, but a strong approaching cold front should generate thunderstorms by mid-to-late afternoon. This is a very different meteorological set-up than what we saw last Friday, when we had tremendous instability (remember that heat and humidity?) but a marginal wind field. This time, the wind field is very impressive -- there is a lot of wind shear between the surface and 20,000 feet aloft. Specifically, wind direction will be shifting from the south to the west, and wind speeds will increase to between 50 and 60 mph aloft.
However, unlike Friday, temperatures will only be in the upper 70s, with lower humidity. So, instead of easy-to-generate storms, this time it will take much more of a physical process to get those parcels of air to rise violently and develop into thunderstorms. If a line of storms develops ahead of Wednesday's cold front, then I think severe weather is a high probability. Even if storms don't materialize, any line of showers that accompanies the front itself Wednesday evening could easily generate strong wind gusts. Obviously, more strong to severe wind gusts are the last thing we need, so remain alert, be prepared, and I'll keep you posted. And if you haven't done it already, download the FREE Local4Casters Weather App from the app store. Just search for WDIV…it's right there…and while you're there, also download our Storm Pins app (it's free, too).
The Wednesday night cold front is the front edge of a significant air mass change that will bring below average temperatures through the weekend. Thursday will be mostly cloudy and breezy, with highs in the upper 60s.
Partly cloudy Thursday night, with lows in the upper 40s.
Partly cloudy on Friday, with highs in the low 60s. Mostly clear Friday night, with lows in the mid 40s.
Mostly sunny both Saturday and Sunday…a spectacular fall weekend…with highs in the low to mid 60s and lows in the mid 40s. Yes, it might be cooler than you want, but the September sun angle is still high enough to make those 60s feel pretty pleasant.