Northwest flow is no friend of mine

Before heading off to work this afternoon, I was sitting in my living room eating lunch and had some mealtime entertainment in the form of sparrows and robins hopping around my deck and the tree outside the window. I think the robin was just poking around for a little food, but the sparrows looked like they were collecting any small twig, pine needle, or other scrap that could be used to build a nest. It's so nice seeing and hearing the birds, even if it isn't warm out yet.

I was also surprised to see so much sunshine today! It was "self-destructive" just not too far from Rockford, though, as it led to instability and pockets of small snow showers. When I went to the grocery store, I saw the bank of puffy cumulus to the west and got nervous, worried that some heavy-duty snow was going to come in and doubly bust my forecast. My meteorologist buddy in Cedar Rapids, Iowa calmed my fears and said that even when the snow came down pretty good, it wasn't sticking.

I suppose I should say something about the image I posted above. We're in northwest flow, which means our upper-level winds are coming from - you guessed it - the northwest. When we're in such patterns, we tend to experience below normal temperatures. Disturbances also ride along the flow and impact us fairly frequently ... to the tune of once every few days. This week, we're under northwest flow, which explains the cool highs and two rain chances in the forecast. The Monday night/Tuesday system will have trouble scooping up Gulf of Mexico moisture and precipitation should be pretty minimal, but the system at the end of the week bears some watching. We'll once again be riding on a sharp temperature gradient on Thursday and Friday. For right now, I'm sticking with the warmer side of things, but I'm seeing a few indications that our highs will have to have several degrees shaved off.