A strong area of low pressure will be exiting the Red River Valley this morning and will lift through western Ontario by this evening.
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This will allow the heavy rainfall and severe weather threat to come to an end across the Upper Midwest with drier and cooler temperatures arriving in its wake.
An associated cold front will be settling southeastward across the Great Lakes region by this evening and will stretch southwestward back down into the southern High Plains.
Once again this front is expected to interact with a very moist and unstable airmass along and ahead of it which will set the stage for numerous areas of heavy showers and thunderstorms.
Some of the thunderstorms are expected to be severe later today and tonight, and the Storm Prediction Center has depicted an Enhanced Risk of severe thunderstorms from the Texas Panhandle northeastward across northwest Oklahoma and into southeast Kansas.
Large hail, damaging winds, and perhaps a couple of tornadoes will be possible across these areas.
Some thunderstorms with large hail and damaging winds may also impact the middle Mississippi Valley through the Great Lakes.
In addition to the severe weather, the showers and thunderstorms will produce areas of heavy rainfall and there will be concerns for areas of flash flooding across parts of the central and southern Plains, and the middle Mississippi Valley.
The Weather Prediction Center has indicated a Slight Risk of excessive rainfall across portions of this region where the front will be slowing down and allowing for the shower and thunderstorm activity to persist and locally train over the same area for an extended period of time.
Locally a few inches of rain will be possible, with the heaviest amounts likely focusing from northwest Oklahoma through southeast Kansas and into western and central Missouri.
The front by Wednesday will be slowly drifting southward down through the southern Plains and may occasionally stall out as it approaches the Red River Valley of the South.
Additional areas of showers and thunderstorms are expected across the southern Plains on Wednesday with locally heavy rainfall totals across parts of southern Oklahoma and northern Texas.
A few severe thunderstorms with large hail and damaging winds will also be possible.
Aside from a threat of showers and thunderstorms across the Gulf Coast, and especially down across areas of southeast Florida, much of the East will see a dry, hot, and humid day ahead as high pressure offshore of the East Coast maintains southerly flow up from the Gulf of Mexico.
This will yield widespread above normal temperatures with many areas seeing temperatures ranging from the upper 80s to the mid 90s.
However, much cooler temperatures by comparison will be noted over New England over the next couple of days as a backdoor cold front sinks south from southeast Canada.
Some scattered showers will be possible along this front as well.
However, the front upstream across the Plains and Midwest will arrive across the East on Wednesday and Thursday which will break down the heat more regionally and also bring a more widespread threat of showers and thunderstorms.
Elsewhere, the very cool temperatures that are currently situated over the Intermountain West will settle south and east down through the central and southern Plains, and also the southern Rockies in behind the aforementioned front.
Temperatures will be locally well below normal over the next couple of days, but this will be welcome news as this will help to lower the fire danger across the region, and mitigate the spread of any ongoing fires. ■
A clipper system will move quickly across the northern Plains into the Midwest Friday and the Northeast by Saturday, bringing a wintry mix of rain and snow showers ahead of a sweeping cold front.