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000
FXUS61 KCLE 240611
AFDCLE

Area Forecast Discussion
National Weather Service Cleveland OH
211 AM EDT Wed Apr 24 2024

.SYNOPSIS...
Low pressure will track east to the north of Lake Erie through
Wednesday morning, pushing a cold front east across the region
tonight into early Wednesday. High pressure will build over the
area by Wednesday night and continue to influence the weather
through Friday before drifting east off the New England
coastline. A warm front will lift across the local area Friday
night into Saturday.

&&

.NEAR TERM /THROUGH TODAY/...
930 PM...Pre-frontal trough has exited east of the area this
evening with the main cold front approaching the vicinity of
Indiana and Michigan. An area of scattered showers and
thunderstorms has developed across portions of western and
central MI ahead of the front. Anticipate this activity to
weaken over the next few hours as it enters NW OH which should
largely limit the overall lightning threat, though did add a
brief window of slight chance thunder given a small area of
around 250 J/kg MUCAPE.

Previous Discussion... Showers are moving east across the area
with a pre-frontal trough, however the lower levels have been
quite slow to saturate so precip has largely been virga or very
light at the onset. The column should continue to saturate
through this evening and it will rain at all locations at some
point this evening/tonight, especially as the upper trough axis
approaches from the west. The trough axis and surface cold front
will cross the CWA overnight before exiting to the east
Wednesday morning. Cold air advection will develop behind the
front and persistent upper troughing will result in continued
light rain/drizzle chances across the snowbelt region through
Wednesday morning and possibly into the early afternoon.
Northwest winds 10 to 15 mph in addition to cooler temperatures
in the upper 40s to around 50 degrees will result in chilly
apparent temperatures in the 30s for most of Wednesday.

Surface high pressure begins to build in from the northwest
Wednesday afternoon into Wednesday evening and should see a
gradual decrease in cloud cover from north to south Wednesday
evening into Wednesday night. There is still potential for
widespread sub-freezing overnight lows late Wednesday night into
Thursday morning and the latest forecast has minimum temps in
the in the upper 20s to lower 30s across the majority of the
area Wednesday night. A Freeze Watch has been issued for the
entire area from Midnight until 10 AM Thursday. With that being
said, there are a couple of areas of uncertainty: locations that
will be influenced by the warmer Lake Erie in addition to
southeastern zones. Locations along the immediate lakeshore will
likely remain just above freezing, but there`s some uncertainty
in how far south the warming effects of Lake Erie reach; this
could throw a wrench into the temperature forecast for lakeshore
zones, especially northern Ashtabula and Erie (PA) counties.
There is also a touch of uncertainty in the cloud cover forecast
for southeastern zones, roughly from Knox to Stark counties.
Any lingering mid-level clouds could result in a warmer low
temperature forecast due to less radiational cooling. Will
continue to monitor cloud cover and temperature trends over the
next 24 hours or so.

&&

.SHORT TERM /TONIGHT THROUGH FRIDAY NIGHT/...
High pressure controls the region Thursday into Friday with a
warming trend expected. The warm front lifts across the region
Friday night into Saturday morning with enough lift to generate
showers and maybe a few thunderstorms. High Thursday in the 50`s,
then warming into the 60`s on Friday. One last cool night Thursday
night with lows in the 30`s. Lows only dip into the mid 40`s to mid
50`s for Friday night.

&&

.LONG TERM /SATURDAY THROUGH TUESDAY/...
The warm front should be northeast of the region at some point
Saturday morning with the entire region remaining in the warm
sector through Monday evening. So expect to see well above average
temperatures through the long term period. It does become a bit
cooler on Tuesday as a cold front moves eastward across the CWA.

Chances for showers and thunderstorms over the weekend look to be on
a downward trend Saturday afternoon through Monday morning. Thinking
is that a slight increase in the upper level ridge will be enough to
at least limit the coverage of any thunderstorms that can develop
across the area. Thunderstorm chances increase Monday afternoon into
Tuesday as a cold front moves west to east across the region. There
is uncertainty on its timing as jet energy ejects out of the
Southern Plains. Stay tuned for some better timing on when stronger
thunderstorms will be possible.

&&

.AVIATION /06Z Wednesday THROUGH Sunday/...
An area of showers across western Lake Erie and Northwest Ohio
will move east through 12Z ahead of a cold front that will push
south across Lake Erie. Showers will generally not last more
than an hour at any location, except perhaps ERI between 12-18Z.
MVFR ceilings are expanding with the pre- frontal trough and it
still looks like a few hour window of IFR is possible in the
12-18Z window, although not lasting that whole time. Ceilings
will return to MVFR for much of the afternoon and gradually
scatter from the north between 00-06Z.

South to southwest winds continue at all terminals at 06Z but a
wind shift to the west and eventually north will occur behind
the front. Winds may occasionally gust to around 20 knots,
at TOL/FDY/CLE during the late morning/afternoon on Wednesday.

Outlook...Non-VFR may return in showers and thunderstorms
Friday afternoon through Saturday.

&&

.MARINE...
Winds will decrease this evening across the lake as a cold front
sags toward the lake. The stronger southwesterly winds that are over
the western portion of the lake will drift toward the center of the
lake. So will go with the current timing of the small craft advisory
ending across the western basin at 4 pm. The central portion of the
small craft advisory will end at 6 pm. The cold front crosses the
lake overnight with northwest winds increasing in its wake. It
appears the winds increase enough to build waves on Wednesday so a
new small craft advisory may be needed sunrise to late afternoon.
High pressure then takes control of the region Thursday into Friday.
So expect easterly winds to become southerly Thursday night through
Friday night.

&&

.CLE WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES...
OH...Freeze Watch from late tonight through Thursday morning for
     OHZ003-006>014-017>023-027>033-036>038-047-089.
PA...Freeze Watch from late tonight through Thursday morning for
     PAZ001>003.
NY...None.
MARINE...None.

&&

$$

SYNOPSIS...Maines
NEAR TERM...Kahn/Maines
SHORT TERM...MM
LONG TERM...MM
AVIATION...KEC
MARINE...MM