Straying away from the heat for a while

If you didn’t wake up to it, let me give you a short recap of early Tuesday morning: spotty, pop-up thunderstorms were seen across southeast Nebraska.

These short-lived storms brought frequent lightning and a brief downpour to those who were lucky enough to be right underneath them. Here’s a snapshot of some of the activity seen around Lincoln just before 4 a.m. on Tuesday.

This morning’s early round will be all we get until this next weekend brings another chance. But a cold front is now making its way through the state, bringing cooler weather and winds out of the north.

Most models keep precipitation through the rest of the day closer to the center of the low-pressure system in the Dakotas, but a brief shower or two moving into northeast Nebraska later on is possible, too. Most of us will be dry after this morning.

With one more hot day and temperatures in the 90s on Tuesday, the question must be asked: is this the last day of the year to see 90° or higher for Lincoln? Climatology would say no. Just looking at the past 10 years, the “earliest” last day happened by September 19th. The latest we’ve seen these hot temperatures rear their heads is the second week of October.

This afternoon should be another breezy one, but winds shifting out of the northwest. With mixing from the upper levels, we should still touch the lower 90s for a time, but cooler weather will quickly move in overnight and for Wednesday.

Across the area, the hottest temperatures will be seen toward the southeast corner of the state. Further west, some spots will barely make it to the 80s for a nice change.

Our change in Lincoln will be seen by Wednesday. After several days of triple-digit heat for some, this will be a welcome change. With the wind shift, we may see some Canadian smoke settle back into the area toward the surface by the morning and afternoon tomorrow.

After rain early Tuesday, we won’t see another chance until the end of the week and into the weekend. In fact, we may be in for some highs in the 70s looking ahead to next Monday!

Meteorologist Jessica Blum 
Twitter: JessicaBlumWx 
Facebook: JessicaBlumWx