COOLER WEATHER NEXT FEW DAYS–BUT MAJOR WARMING HEADED THIS WAY BY NEXT WEEK—Cooling Lakeshore Breezes Friday Into Easter Sunday To Give Way To “SW” Flow Capable Of Overcoming Lake Cooling
A HUGE PATTERN CHANGE IS TO USHER THE WARMEST TEMPS OF 2023 AND SINCE LAST AUTUMN in a huge portion of the Lower 48. This is the 1 to 5 DAY TEMP DEPARTURE FORECAST off the NWS GFS model
Daytime high temps are predicted to surge to–or above–70-degrees each day next week making it the warmest run of weather here to date in 2023. It’s even conceivable a temp could approach 80 in the area Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday next week.
The expansion of warm temps over a good swath of the country is reflected in the predicted per cent of the Lower 48 which is to reach or exceed 70-deg. 17% of the country is to do that Thursday down to 11% Friday. But warming begins for the Easter weekend with 21% of the country looking for 70s Saturday and 33% Easter Sunday. By Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday next week, those percentages will surge to 58%, 60% and 57% respectively.
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A HUGE PATTERN CHANGE IS TO USHER THE WARMEST TEMPS OF 2023 AND SINCE LAST AUTUMN in a huge portion of the Lower 48. This is the 1 to 5 DAY TEMP DEPARTURE FORECAST off the NWS GFS model 
Day 6 to 10 TEMP DEPARTURE FORECAST which reach into next week and indicates a dramatically expanded area of ABOVE NORMAL TEMPS (indicated in the huge yellow and orange shaded area). The 6 to 10 day period runs from next Monday into next Saturday 
DAY 11-15 TEMP DEPARTURE FORECAST which extends from a week from this coming Saturday to two weeks from Thursday this week. 
SUNDAY FORECAST HIGHS 
Predicted SUNDAY HIGH TEMP DEPARTURES 
NEXT TUESDAY’S FORECAST HIGHS 
CHANGING UPPER WINDS underpin the projected warm-up. But chilly steering winds out of Canada are behind short term cooling. This map indicates the upper wind pattern predicted for Thursday 
The upper air panel shows the pattern predicted by the Weather Service’s GFS model next Wednesday. A huge warm air dome is to develop over the Midwest and Northeast producing STRONG WARMING. 
Here’s the upper air forecast a week from Friday indicating warmth still in control across much of the Midwest eastern U.S.
The Storm Behind Tuesday’s Severe Weather
The huge storm system responsible for an array of severe weather–including a blizzard in the northern Plains and severe and, in some areas, tornado and damaging wind generating t-storms from the Midwest into the Deep South. More than 300 reports of severe weather were filed with the NWS’ Storm Prediction Center–including 11 reports of tornadoes. The 2 day period included 179 reports of large hail–many of them across Iowa, Missouri, Illinois and Indiana.
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Here’s the Wednesday afternoon surface weather map showing the windy storm system which generated the recent storms. 
That Wednesday’s spring storm is, in effect, a giant wind machine is evident from the pressure gradient represented by the tightly packed isobars you see on the Wednesday surface analysis. 
Wednesday winds and wind velocities. 
Actual midday wind gusts Wednesday 
Observed midday wind gusts Wednesday 
Peak wind gusts since midnight Wednesday
TUESDAY’S HUGE HAIL STONES
A wide swath of northern Illinois was peppered with HUGE HAIL on Tuesday. This satellite animation out of CIMSS—the Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison—color enhances the fast erupting t-storms that had spread from eastern Iowa to the Chicago area in only 5 hours time.
The storms towered more than 8 miles into the atmosphere—to heights of 42,000 ft. where temps were cold and the powerful storm held hailstones aloft allowing them to grow to tennis ball size—some more than 3″ in diameter which is between tea cup and grapefruit size—enough to smash car windows.
These storms produced 60 mph wind gusts.
More than 172 reports of large hail were filed with the National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center.
Check out the satellite animation of the fast erupting t-storms that had spread from Iowa to the Chicago area in only 5 hours time:
POWERFUL NON-T-STORM WINDS GUSTING 40 TO 50 MPH WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON HAS CAPPED A BUSY TWO DAYS OF WEATHER ACROSS THE CHICAGO AREA–A PERIOD WITH LARGE HAIL GENERATING T-STORMS AND LOCAL HEAVY RAINS—COOLER WEATHER SETTLES IN OVER COMING DAYS–BUT A MAJOR PATTERN CHANGE IS TO BRING THE CHICAGO AREA ITS WARMEST WEATHER OF 2023 AND SINCE LAST FALL HERE
Wednesday opened with the warmest temps of 2023, elevated humidities and ominous skies and active t-storms which generated wind gusts as high as 79 mph in Compton in Lee County and 66 mph at Valparaiso in northwest Indiana. Skies across the area hosted eye-catching displays of wind-tossed ASPERITAS clouds–described as dark “doomsday” appearing clouds which look like rough ocean waters. These accompanied morning t-storms amid 70-deg temps. Chicago’s 72-deg high at O’Hare has been the year’s warmest to date.
Powerful non-t-storm winds have raked the area since. O’Hare has registered a 47 mph gusts and gusts at Midway have topped out at 54 mph. Check out some of the other wind gusts observed across the Greater Chicago area:
