Gusty winds will finally begin to decrease later this evening as an area of high pressure settles in for the next 24 hours. Today's top gusts reached close to 50 mph at times, just shy of wind advisory criteria.
We won't have nearly as much wind to contend with to start the new work week, but we will still hang on to some significant warmth for this time of year as temperatures remain in the 40s through Tuesday.
Overall the temperature trend this week is fairly consistent in that nearly every day will see values above the normal high, but, there will be some dips in the pattern that will occasionally bring in short-lived colder days. One of those days will be Wednesday as a weak front moves through giving us a glancing blow of colder air to our northeast. What comes behind that is even more impressive as a strong area of low pressure begins to organize to our west. Until then, dry conditions will persist through at least Thursday morning the way things look right now.
This storm system will once again draw up a very warm air mass and a good amount of moisture that will lead to rain by Thursday evening. Winds will also be gusty at times, too. Meanwhile, areas in the Dakotas and Minnesota will once again be hammered with heavy amounts of snow and wind.
This storm system will have the capability of laying down some heavy rainfall totals to our south and east. This is something we will be keeping a close eye on as any shift in the track could potentially pull these higher rainfall totals closer to us here in the Quad Cities. That is something we certainly don't want with the rivers already running high. As of right now, it appears total rainfall for this week will remain at an inch or less.
As this storm pulls away Friday morning, some of the rain showers could briefly mix with snow. Any shot of accumulating snow looks fairly sparse this week as the warmer temperatures remain in play.
Meteorologist Andrew Stutzke