On the Edge

The weather flow across North America is jammed up. High pressure in the upper atmosphere over northeast Canada is blocking a major storm over the northeastern USA.  Record amounts of snow have been reported over parts of New York state and New England.  Moisture from the Atlantic Ocean is being drawn around the north side the massive low and thrown back toward the west into the Great Lakes, and the midwest. The net effect for our area will be mostly cloudy skies tonight and Sunday. These clouds are stuck between the back side of the low pressure and a ridge of high pressure reaching from Canada across the plains states. There will be a big difference in temperature ovenight where the back edge of the clouds lines up north to south.  To the west, where skies will be mostly clear overnight in eastern Iowa temperatures may drop into the single digits, and to the east over north central Illinois and futher east lows will be in the middle 20's.  A Canadian cold front stretching westward from Hudson Bay, and a disturbance associated with the front, will sweep across the area from the north on Monday.  This should be the final disturbance associated with the weakening major low in the north eastern states, and it will only bring a chance of flurries on Monday.  After the system passes through skies will become partly cloudy on Tuesday, and mostly sunny to sunny for the rest of the week as  high pressure takes charge of our weather. There will be a slow warming of temperatures with a good possibility that the 40 degree mark will be reached on Friday or Saturday. Sunday February 28th marks the end of meteorological winter.  With the slowly warming temperatures, and lots of early March sunshine next week it will begin to feel a little more like spring, even though we still have snow on the ground.
 Be sure to stop by the First Warn Weather Blog for more information! Have a great Sunday!