An intense storm system is delivering a cocktail of weather across the midwest, ranging from a severe weather / tornado outbreak over eastern Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska, to a blizzard across eastern Wyoming, western South Dakota, and North Dakota. Rapid City, SD is a center for rapid changing weather, and while it is getting 2"/hr snow with 60mph wind gusts now, it was 75 with scattered thunderstorms in the area yesterday afternoon. South Dakota really highlights it all this afternoon: blizzard warning in the western half of the state while there is a tornado watch currently in effect for the eastern half of the state.

Even further west, out to Alaska, Mt. Redoubt erupted several times through this morning, spewing ash up to 60,000ft into the atmosphere. Should any further large eruptions continue, it is possible that the ash clouds could have some effect on the global weather through the boreal summer.

Coming back home now, we do not have quite the same excitement with our weather today. Nonetheless it was out of the ordinary. Highs struggled into the upper 20's and low 30's today across the region, with gusty northwest winds sending the windchill into the single digits and teens. It sure didn't feel like spring today.

High pressure will be developing off the coast tomorrow, which will help temperatures up a little higher, and southerly flow should develop by Wednesday out ahead of the midwest storm system. This will encourage warmer air into the region raising temperatures into the 50's.

Frontal boundary moves through the Ohio Valley Wednesday night, and will be approaching New England on Thursday. With stubborn high pressure still sitting along the coast with dry air locked in across the northeast, precipitation will take a while to move in. However, latest model guidance is suggesting that some energy may remain on the south end of the front, with secondary surface low pressure passing south of New England Friday morning. This would spread rain showers across much of the Mid Atlantic and SNE. Consensus at this point is for about .25" to .5" of rain. It would be much needed rainfall as drought conditions are developing for much of this region.

Skies should clear again for Friday night and Saturday, before the next storm moves out of the central plains. Timing is uncertain. At this point it looks like the developing warm air advection pattern should trigger showers during the day Sunday. Cold front then approaches on Monday, with some heavier shower possible. There could also be some thunder as well. Left over showers possible on Tuesday as mid level cyclonic flow remains over the area.

Colder air moves in behind the front. ECM and GFS ensembles show flow becoming more zonal across the nation, with at least a brief respite from storminess.