Rain at times this weekend, slightly cooler

A potent weather system currently over the southern High Plains this morning will be making its way in our direction during the next 24-48 hours. This system will bring rain chances to our area as it passes through, especially Saturday afternoon through Sunday morning.

An upper level low is currently meandering over northern New Mexico this morning. The slow movement of the low has lead to near record breaking snowfall across portions of eastern Colorado since Thursday morning! This low finally begins to drift northeast through the day today, taking the precipitation with it.

As the low approaches our area Saturday, cloud cover will increase across the area Friday night into Saturday morning. Rain chances arrive across the area by Saturday afternoon, with our Iowa counties potentially seeing light rain as early as Saturday morning, depending on the speed of the initial rain band.

Rain chances will continue through the afternoon, although it certainly is not expected to be a complete washout at this time. This band of rain is expected to move through quite quickly Saturday afternoon, resulting in lower rainfall totals overall. Enough to soak the pavement but not much to fill the rain gauge.

Saturday night, dry air works into the area ahead of the low pressure, drying us out a fair bit before the low pressure system itself passes through Sunday morning. Rain becomes likely, but again, totals are not expected to be all that impressive.

The majority of the rain will push out of the area by Sunday afternoon, but we will still have a thick deck of low level stratus clouds to deal with until Sunday night. With that said, not a whole lot going for the sunshine department on Sunday. Once again though, Sunday will not be a washout, with plenty of dry time, especially during the afternoon.

High temperatures Saturday will be capped in the upper 40F’s to around 50F thanks to the cloud cover and rain moving through. Sunday will be a bit warmer due to a small push of warmer air northward just ahead of the incoming low, resulting in highs in the low 50F’s.

Winds will be a bit breezy this weekend as well, gusting up to 20 mph at times both Saturday and Sunday. Not the best weekend for getting out and doing some deer hunting, but not a soaking washout or a bone chiller either by any means.