How Yesterday Predicted Today

The following surface map is from the evening of April 17. You can see two occluded fronts surrounding Wisconsin. Snow is to the NW and rain is to the WSW. The rain is being pushed northward by the warm front to the south. Even if the map did not show heavy rain coming, the low pressure system to the SW moving NE would be a good indicator that we would see precipitation today.

Watching the speed at which this storm has been developing and traveling, the snow was going to miss us entirely and the rain would bring more flooding. From looking at April 17th's map, it was likely that the rain would hit strong this morning but move past us by the afternoon. This is pretty much how it went today. The rain did intensify and extend later into the afternoon than I had anticipated. Even after the rain departed, gloomy altostratus clouds blanketed the area with gray.

Currently, the temperature is 39 degrees F with a wind chill of 32 degrees F. This is pretty close to what we were experiencing yesterday at this time. Tomorrow will be cooler, because the low pressure system will be right over our area by early morning. The counterclockwise wind rotation of the low pressure system will be bringing us winds from the north.