I haven't even tried to put together a weather blog for the last 5 days. I thought about it over the weekend, and as youo know it's very unlike me NOT to do a couple of weekend blogs for you, but in all honesty there wasn't a single thing that I thought off that would really be interesting to blog about that had any relevance to our weather locally. Not that today is really that much different, although after quite a few days of little wind...that has changed thanks to a cold front that has moved through the area. In it's wake a pretty strong area of High pressure has started to build into the western Dakotas and MT...this is sending air rushing down through the western plains states towards our area and has created those wind gusts. Winds up towards NE are still gusting to about 35-40 MPH so it is certainly going to be a windy afternoon out there however the winds will start to drop off this evening and go fairly light by early tomorrow AM.

Speaking of the winds, up towards the Great Lakes they are going to be howling. Storm Warnings are in effect for Lake Michigan an Lake Superior. There is the potential for winds of near 60 MPH tonight and tomorrow AM up there.

Temperatures yesterday maxed out in the 80-85 range and today we should be in the same general zone, perhaps a couple of notches lower. The air in NE is about 5-8 degrees cooler than here and that's the air rushing our way now. Although there are some clouds to the north of the metro, they should thin somewhat as they move through in the next few hours.

Highs tomorrow and Friday should be around 70 with lows back into the 40s . Dry air and light winds will again be the prevalent weather for the next several days.

So when do things change...well the atmosphere will be going through it's normal fall transition to a stormier regime around the country. The 1st effects of this transition will be out across the western third of the country as a strong trof in the atmosphere comes ashore by the middle of next week. The model data has been pretty consistent with this potential for quite some time. The EURO model has had it's rough spots with what it's doing with the storm (keeping it all out towards the west). As a matter of fact it never gives up precip through the next 10 days. However the ensemble runs of the same model handles things more like the GFS has been indicating so aside from the operational EURO, pretty much every other model is more or less in agreement that the rain chances will markedly go up starting NEXT FRIDAY...so we've still got another 7+ days of dry weather to deal with.

The advance of this system will help to usher in milder/warmer air again next week. Temperatures for most of the week should be at least 10 degrees above average with highs up into the 80-85 range again. The air will be dry initially but at least some gulf moisture should get pulled northwards by next Thursday. Until then though the dewpoints look to be very dry for quite some time. Eventually we'll start to at least see some moisture, in the form of at least clouds either later next THU or sometime on FRI (7th).

Well talk a lot more about that scenario later in the weekend when things become a bit more clear for the timing...but at least some rain looks likely in the 10/7-8th time frame.

The tropics are still active. Ophelia which fell apart then regenerated is now near hurricane force and looks pretty darn good on the satellite loop this afternoon and there are indications of an eye trying to form...

Ophelia is forecast to become the seasons 4th (only) hurricane by the end of the day tomorrow, however it shouldn't threaten any land areas for the next 5 days although will be passing off towards the east of Bermuda if the present track holds.

2011 has certainly been a wild year for the weather...the folks at the Weather Channel have done a nice job with a record compilation of what has happened...take a look.

Meanwhile the heat is still baking parts of TX...Austin will hit 100 again today breaking a daily high record and perhaps from here on out there will be no more 100s for them for the rest of the season...hopefully.

Have a great rest of the day and keep those feet planted firmly on the ground.

Joe