Thursday April 7th, 2015, 6:20 pm
Temperature: 76 F
Feels like: 76 F
Wind: SSW 20 mph
Humidity: 56%
Pressure: 29.72 in

Today we experienced all kinds of weather on the Eau Claire campus. This morning started off as very warm and humid with very few clouds in the sky. It was shaping up to look like we would get strong thunderstorms in the afternoon. As the day progressed, cumulus stratus clouds moved into the area. This trapped the heat underneath the clouds diminishing the chances of strong storms to form. Currently the temperature and real feel is 76F, but it feel much warmer as it is very humid out and sticky. Winds are out of the south southwest at 20 mph with gusts reaching into the 30 mph range.

 Above is the current radar for the Eau Claire area. You can see that the cities just experienced some sever weather as it passed its way through the area. The next stop will be the Eau Claire area in a few hours if they don't die out. You can also see some smaller sever weather popping up to the west of the cities. It will be interesting to keep an eye on these to see if they form into stronger storms as the evening progresses.

 Above is the current surface model for the midwest. Looking back at yesterday, there is still storms to the north were the stationary front and warm front collide. I expect these showers to continue to the east as there is a decent inflow of moisture in the air. You can see a trough raining from the upper midwest of Wisconsin down into Ohio. As this is sitting in front of a cold front, you can see how the storms are forming on the southwestern side of that trough line mostly. As that trough moves its way eastward, we can expect these storms to continue to roll into the area.

This is the Stuve diagram from the Minneapolis weather station. You can see how the temperature and precipitation line crossed causing for precipitation in the area. Looking at the LI index, its reading that the atmosphere is unstable. These continued to drop from yesterday as expected from the storms that rolled into the area. We can expect much of the same conditions for tomorrow as well with precipitation.