Get ready for big ups and downs in the temperature

There’s going to be a change in the weather. You’re safe in predicting that for the rest of this week, with highs bouncing from sixties to mid-eighties and back to cool again from one day to the next. But National Weather Service forecaster Rich Kinney says while it keeps the weatherman busy, it’s nothing out of the ordinary. He says that’s really “par for the course” in Iowa in this season, fast changes in weather pattern that are the norm in springtime. A cool front lies over the state this afternoon, but Kinney says that’s due to change. Later on tonight and Wednesday, the wind will change from the south, sending temps into the 80s and even in southwest Iowa, 90 degrees. That part of the forecast does not call for any storms, outside of some strong breeziness, but this, too, will pass. Later Wednesday night into Thursday, a cold front will arrive and from Des Moines southeastward there’s the potential for thunderstorms along the front Thursday afternoon, some possibly severe. While we think of the dog days of late summer as the most likely for big storms, Kinney says they’re actually the most common in late April and most of May.