Hawkeye

Today was very windy again, and of course cool, but it was much better than yesterday.  Today brought more sun and a temp several degrees higher.

Last night's Euro brought the cold back into the central and eastern US big time at the end of the month.  On the new run the cold is nowhere to be found.  Instead, we'd be back in the 70s by the end of the month, just like what the GFS has been suggesting.

The op Euro has modified some in the near term, but then brings the highly amplified cold pattern right back for the end of the month.

A whopping 2.10" of rain here, well above what I was expecting.  We got some heavier bands late yesterday and then the deformation zone pivoted on top of us overnight.  We couldn't buy any precip from March into early April, but 3.7 inches has fallen over the last two weeks.

The 00z Euro is just awful.  Its pattern the rest of the month looks more like January than late April.  The storm track gets suppressed down to the gulf coast.

For a while the models had been showing some nice troughs digging into the west with a couple widespread heavier rain/storm events for our region, but they've shifted to a more progressive northern-stream-dominant flow that's not looking as warm next week and not warm at all toward day ten as the flow turns northwesterly. 

I finally got lucky and had a very thin line of heavy storms train over me late this afternoon.  I ended up with 1.25 inches of rain, nearly doubling my precip total from the last 2+ months.  There wasn't much lightning, but there were a couple nice cracks.  It was nice to see some hail.

After a near complete bust of a week, a last minute skinny line of storms trained over my side of Cedar Rapids and dropped three rounds of hail.  Most of it was pea size, but one round had a few pieces up to 0.50" diameter and one round had 0.75" diameter pieces.

I was expecting more storms so far this week but it's been pretty lame so far.

No kidding.  It appears we may only get one shot of rain this entire week, late tonight into Thursday morning.

Monday and Tuesday have been big ol' duds over here.  Now it's up to Wednesday night to deliver and salvage something from the non-existent week of rain the models had been predicting.  It appears areas to my east will have a better shot at any severe weather Thursday.

Thinking back to the discussion last month, wasn't early April supposed to be cold across our region with a warmer pattern showing up mid-month?

Another fantastic day here with a temp near 70.  I'm not sure how much rain we'll get this week.  The models are suggesting a lot of the thunderstorm action will be south and southeast of us and the main low Thursday/Friday may track right over us, which could leave us in a relative dry area with storms to the southeast and defo zone to the nw.

We are due for a wet pattern(eastern Iowa is now 'abnormally dry') and it looks like we're going to get it.  All the models have at least four good rounds of rain and storms Monday-Friday.

Next week is looking very unsettled.  The GFS is showing a stalled front (with me on the cold side ) with several rounds of rain from Monday through Saturday.

There didn't appear to be a lot of severe weather, but it was nice to see a solid line of storms moving through eastern NE and western IA for the first time this season.

We soared into the upper 70s by 1pm and then stayed there the rest of the afternoon.

The air over here is very dry with dews in the 30s (temp approaching 80).  There will be a sliver of better dews drawn up across the area tonight, but it's still not the greatest setup for a good rainfall.

Des Moines received no measurable snowfall in March, the first time since 1997.

It figures the models are bringing the late-week snow system back.  I just planted my dormant geraniums in their outside pots to wake them up during the current warm stretch.  I can bring the big pots inside during a brief period, though.  What concerns me a bit more is early next week.  A couple models have trended south and colder with the next storm.

We overachieved today, as we seem to do every time there is warm advection and plenty of sun.  We were able to hit a breezy 73.  Wednesday should be well into the 70s again.

Coming into March there was a lot of talk about it possibly being generally colder and snowier than normal, and some folks north and east certainly saw some of that, but here in Cedar Rapids we only had 0.8" of snow the entire month (March 3rd).  That's on par with the least snowy March over at least the last eight years.

Congrats on the nice late March snowfall.  There are some pretty impressive totals.  Here in Cedar Rapids we got freezing rain overnight that put a nice glaze on everything.  It's the most ice we've had all season.  Seeing 8-12 inches of snow would be pretty cool, but I'm glad I didn't get any because I'm done with snow and don't want to have to shovel anymore.

4+ inches now from Decorah to Prairie du Chien. 

SW Iowa is in the 70s, NE Iowa is in the upper 20s with heavy snow.  A guy in Prairie du Chien has already received 2.5 inches.

06z RGEM has >1" precip in a narrow strip from se Minny to far ne Iowa.  Someone could get a real nice snowfall if a heavy band parks over them.