A few changes in the forecast this morning. One has to do with intensity and track of rains this weekend, and the other with dry windows next week and in the extended period. Both of these have to be viewed as a little positive, given our wet outlook the past few days, but we question whether the overall pattern changes are positive enough.

Rain rotates through the state today coming around the backside of a strong low exiting the eastern corn belt. Rains can range from a few hundredths of an inch to an additional half inch today, depending on where you are. The best totals will skew toward the eastern half of the state. Coverage will be around 65%. Even in areas where there is little to no rain, clouds will be a dominant feature, and drying will not be something we see much of.

No new precipitation for Friday, as we still will have to contend with clouds through the day. There can be breaks in the clouds, but we find ourselves sandwiched between the exiting system to the east and the approaching moisture from the southwest. So, look at any sun tomorrow as a bonus! Temps should be near normal.

Rains develop and start to move into the state overnight tomorrow night and will continue into Saturday afternoon However, these showers will trend toward staying more to the south. They also do not look nearly as significant as we have seen in previous model runs. Right now, we like rain totals of .25”-.75” Saturday from I-70 southward, up to a third of an inch from I-70 northward. Coverage will be around 70%. A second wave of moisture comes in overnight Saturday night through midday Sunday, but like its predecessor, it takes a more southerly track. We can add another .25”-.5” over southern Indiana, and perhaps a quarter of an inch up north. Sundays rains have lower coverage, closer to 60%. There is a good chance that most areas north of US 24 get away with no more than a tenth or two over the weekend.

Monday is dry statewide. WE should see sunshine for the holiday and good evaporation. A weak upper level trough works through the northern part of the state overnight Monday night into early Tuesday, and can bring a few hundredths to a tenth or two, mostly down to US 30. The rest of the state will miss out on the moisture, but will see some clouds toward Tuesday morning and an isolated spit/sprinkle.

Dry for the balance of Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday over the state. We should see some good drying in this period with temps normal to above normal and good sunshine. However, we wonder if the window is long enough. We feel optimistic that we might be able to add Friday to that dry pattern as we move forward, but today is not that day. We still see potential for some minor scattered showers over about 40% of the state overnight Thursday into early Friday. If that disturbance weakens or goes away, we are ready to stretch the drying into next Friday, and Saturday for that matter.

In the extended window, we still have a very strong system lined up for early June. We are leaving our projection of the 4^th-6^th alone at the moment. Some models are trying to push it back to the 5^th, others are not. Rain totals from that system alone can be 1-2” with coverage of 100%. We follow that up with a much smaller batch of rain for the 9^th, mostly under a third of an inch.

So…dry windows are larger and can even grow a bit next week (Tue-Thu ATM, perhaps through Saturday?), and we also have a slightly bigger dry window in the 11-16 forecast window. But…will it be enough?

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