FIRST ALERT WEATHER: Staying dry & warm through Memorial Day

Good Saturday evening, everyone. After a nice and chilly start this morning, mostly sunny skies and a light breeze allowed everybody to top out in the upper 70s for highs this afternoon. In terms of where we go from here, any big systems at the surface are staying to our north and west through the rest of the weekend. While the upper-level setup is keeping us dry for now, it will buckle down and start to change things up once we get past this weekend.

In the short term, mostly clear skies and a light south-southeasterly breeze will take us from a mild start this evening to lows in the 50s across the Ozarks.

Around Springfield, we will see warmer air push highs back into the lower 80s for Sunday afternoon. Even with some clouds starting to return on Monday, temperatures look nice with lows in the upper 50s and highs back in the lower 80s.

That goes for the entire area as well. Many spots will push into the upper 70s and lower 80s for Sunday afternoon.

After everybody starts in the upper 50s Monday morning, Memorial Day afternoon will be dry and warm with highs right back into the lower 80s across the area.

Starting late Monday and certainly by Tuesday, the upper levels of the atmosphere will allow moisture from the Gulf of Mexico to return to the Ozarks. We will certainly take notice of its return as dew points start climbing back into the 60s through the middle of next week and into next weekend.

With nothing in the upper levels of the atmosphere to keep the warmth, moisture, and instability from rising, that will start to allow daily chances for afternoon and early evening scattered showers and thunderstorms. I am expecting those chances to return as we head into Tuesday.

I also expect this pattern to continue through the middle of next week and even into next weekend. This is nothing unusual, though. This is a setup that we normally expect as we head toward late spring and early summer here in the Ozarks.

Given these rain chances eager to return, the chance for accumulating rainfall will also return. In general, these rain chances next Tuesday through Saturday could result in amounts on average between a tenth of an inch to about an inch. If we can get some moderate to heavy pockets of rain to come through, that could push amounts a little higher for some. Given how some parts of the Ozarks are running a bit dry, we could certainly use this rain before we head into some of the drier summer months ahead of us.

Even with these rain chances trying to return, that will not stop temperatures from warming up through the rest of the week. Highs will be back at least into the middle 80s through the middle of the coming week. Plus, we could see highs push into the upper 80s by next weekend.

Combine that warmth with the expected humidity to return, it would not surprise me if it felt like the upper 80s to even lower 90s as we go through much of next week. This could certainly be a sneak preview of some of the summer mugginess on the way.

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