DETROIT – Get ready ... there are big weather changes on the way, with many different ramifications.
I'll highlight the timing of everything below with the usual detail I give you to help plan and prepare.
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There's not much to worry about tonight except for some showers moving in…and those will be gone shortly after midnight. Temps will initially drop to near 50° (10° Celsius for our Canadian neighbors), and then rise toward dawn. Southeast wind at 15 to 20 mph.
The annual Leonid Meteor Shower peaks tonight between 3 AM and dawn (it's possible that you may see a couple before that, but the point in the sky where the meteors radiate from doesn't rise in the east until after midnight). I don't know if we'll see enough breaks in the clouds to give us a chance to see them but, if you're out in the predawn hours and you have a patch of clear skies, face east and look up, and maybe you'll see a Leonid Meteor! There will be no moonlight so, if you get clear skies, you should be able to see some if you're in a dark enough area. At its peak, the Leonid Meteor Shower produces about 15 to 20 meteors per hour. Good luck!
Wednesday should start out dry, with partial sunshine even possible. Clouds will increase, though, and we'll have a rainy afternoon to follow. It's going to become windy, with south-southeast wind at 20 to 30 mph with higher gusts also pushing temps into the mid 60s (18° Celsius). Wednesday's sunrise is at 7:27 AM, and Wednesday's sunset is at 5:09 PM.
A strong cold front plows through the area Wednesday night, which will also keep the wind howling. Lows in the mid 40s (7° Celsius).
Partly sunny on Thursday, but with cold air streaming in, don't expect much rise in temperature…perhaps to near 50° (10° Celsius)…and it's still going to be windy.
Partly cloudy Thursday night, with lows in the low 30s (0° Celsius).
Partly cloudy on Friday (it could end up being mostly sunny for a while, with increasing clouds by mid to late afternoon). Highs in the low 40s (5° Celsius).
There's a chance of snow Friday night into Saturday as an upper level system develops a surface low pressure that will affect us.
There are disagreements in the computer models, which is not surprising since the upper level system that will spawn the eventual surface low is still over the Pacific. It should cross the coast tomorrow, so the models probably won't develop any true consensus until after our land-based radiosonde network (weather balloon network) can give us specifics about the upper level dynamics and thermodynamics associated with it. I'll be pouring over that data as soon as I have it in hand.
For planning purposes, I suggest an expectation of some accumulating snow in the Friday night / Saturday timeframe. How much is still very much up in the air, and I refuse to guess (you know me well enough by now…I don't speculate or sensationalize about this stuff).
Highs Saturday in the upper 30s (4° Celsius), and it'll become windy by the end of the afternoon or evening ... and the wind will continue through the night.
Partly cloudy and windy on Sunday, with highs in the upper 30s (4° Celsius). All I can say is that I hope you got your leaves bagged last weekend when it was nice out…I sure did!
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