May 6, 2018

Perfect Day for Running

Current Conditions

Temperature: 72 °F
Dew Point: 34 °F
Winds: N 7 mph
Pressure: 1019.0 mb
Visibility: 10 miles

Today was absolutely gorgeous. The morning was a bit cooler and temperatures soon rose into the low 70s with clear skies turning to partly overcast later this afternoon. The Eau Claire marathon was today and runners could not have asked for a better day. The nice weather can be attributed to the high pressure dome that is currently sitting over Wisconsin (figure 1).

Figure 1. Surface map of the United States.

The high pressure dome is not just creating clear skies for Wisconsin but also for much of the Midwest. There are some rain showers in the northwest and northeast but these are small-scale storms that should not cause any damage. The water vapor satellite image for today in figure 2 shows the cold fronts in the surface map as dark lines (indicating no moisture).

Figure 2. Water vapor satellite of the United States.

As I mentioned earlier it did get cloudier today. Mid-morning there were a few cirrus clouds which morphed into a stratus layer of cirrus that then transitioned into cirrocumulus clouds (figure 3).

Figure 3. Cirrocuulus clouds over UW-Eau Claire.

I was not able to capture it but the cirrus clouds created a halo around the sun that was pretty neat to see!

Previous Prediction

The temperature did cool off from yesterday, but it was by no means any less nice of a day. There was also a thunderstorm last night that I didn't predict happening.

Prediction

For tomorrow we should continue to see fair skies due to the northerly wind and cirrus clouds in the sky. Also expect the temperature to rise as the high pressure dome moves farther south.