Daily Weather Pattern Discussion...Warm And Rainy Tonight!

Hello this is Junior Meteorologist Kyle Elliott with our daily weather pattern discussion...and if you have to go out tonight, you'll probably be glad to know that no heavy winter coat will be needed as temperatures in the lower 30s an hour ago have now warmed up into the middle 40s along with some rain showers in the area. Overnight, temperatures should continue to warm as high as the lower to middle 50s by 2 or 3 A.M. along with some added instability to the atmosphere. If enough warm air and higher dewpoints can get into the region late tonight, isolated thunderstorms might break out as the cold front approaches from the west. Though doubtful, some thunderstorms could put down heavy rainfall along with brief strong wind gusts...although the more likely scenario is for lines of moderate rainfall to move through the region tonight with only a possible rumble of thunder or two. Total rainfall amounts across the north and east should range from .5-1.25 inches...whereas the southern and western parts of the state will only pick up on the order of .25-.5 inches of rainfall overnight. The bigger story than the rainfall, though, is the unseasonably warm temperatures that we could be waking up to in the morning...with morning highs ranging from the upper 40s in the north and west to upper 50s in the south and east. As the day progresses, temperatures will slowly drop off behind the cold front, but no true arctic air will enter the region until early Tuesday. After the arctic chill becomes entrenched, the GFS model shows a rather potent clipper system coming through the region sometime around this coming Thursday, followed by one or two even stronger systems around this coming weekend...but for now, I'm not going to HYPE those events as the details are still very uncertain as many things could and most likely will change. So because I've decided not to HYPE those storms tonight, that's about all I have to touch on for now, so that's all I got tonight. Hope ya'll have a great rest of your night and I'll talk to ya'll tomorrow! This is Junior Meteorologist (Storm Tracker) Kyle Elliott reporting for the AKStormtracker Forecasting Center!