May Rain Check

Now that we've entered the \"unofficial\" start to our summer season, it's time to take a look back and check ahead on rain across the area. Gardens and farms of course need the rain, but sometimes the timing isn't ideal, like when it falls on a holiday! The Memorial Day weekend featured a bit of rain at times, but fortunately we escaped severe storms. The on and off rain through the month has still left us a little behind where we should be, by about an inch as we sit just under two inches on the month so far. Here's a visual of the weekend and total rain tally for Milwaukee:

We are still looking at a few lingering showers this morning, but the accumulating rainfall is coming to an end for the next few days. Here's what's left out there.

These showers are pivoting northeast around the center of an area of low pressure which is heading across the Upper Michigan as it continues it's trek to the northeast away from us.  However, we still have one more rain chance before to month is through, and that comes Friday, wrapping up early Saturday. As our next chance of rain approaches we could see a few embedded storms as the air mass will be heating up toward eighty degrees with slightly humid conditions. While severe weather isn't all that likely, the National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center has us under a \"marginal\" risk for strong storms. The risk comes as a cold front approaches the state triggering the potential for storms with gusty winds and hail. A system we'll be watching very closely in the coming days.

Beyond that we'll see cooler, dry and breezy conditions to wrap up the month for this upcoming weekend. Overall, eleven days this month reported measurable rainfall with another one to two days coming up for this next event.

As we look ahead to the month of June, we will start things off on a quiet note. Monday is June 1st and it looks to be on the cool side, but it will be dry. Then temps will gradually rise back to eighty degrees by late week with our next chance of showers and storms Thursday and Friday. That's the time frame where we may see an up tick in rainfall once again. The National Weather Service's Climate Prediction Center has us trending slightly warmer than normal but also wetter too.

This visual shows a forty percent probability for above average precipitation from June 3rd, through June 9th.

Don't forget you can always download our First Alert mobile weather app! The app is free and a great resource to track rain and storms anytime day or night. We now also have a new interactive radar you can utilize on our web page. You can cruise over any location in the United States to see where rain may be falling or if it could impact your travel plans. It's just one more way we're trying to help you stay ahead of the storm.

I'm meteorologist Rebecca Schuld