Marine Weather and Tide Forecast for Watersmeet, MI

DISCUSSION
Issued at 338 PM CDT Wed Apr 23 2025

Short Term...Tonight and Thursday

Focus remains on precipitation trends over the next 24+ hours. As morning rain/clouds cleared, the afternoon sunshine gave temperatures a boost, and allowed for increasing instability. At 3:00 PM, MUCAPES ranged from about 300 to 1000 J/kg, with mid level lapse rates of 7 to 7.5 C/km, and 0-6km shear of 45 to 55 kts. CAMs have not had a good grasp on radar trends today, with difficulty picking up on the morning activity. Many were virtually dry for this afternoon and evening, but the 17Z and 18Z HRRR are now back to showing some evening developing. Overall, this leads to low confidence moving forward. There isn't much large scale forcing, with the surface cold front still back across western Wisconsin. There are some subtle boundaries around, so diurnally driven showers/thunderstorms, especially along any boundaries, would be the main potential. Given the convective parameters, there remains a marginal risk for isolated severe storms, mainly for 1" hail. The best chance of this is south of a line from Wisconsin Rapids to Sturgeon bay from about 6 PM to 10 PM, which is later than the previous forecast.

Confidence remains low overnight and Thursday morning. There is a slight uptick in forcing Thursday morning, primarily from an fgen band around 850mb. This could create some scattered showers for the first half of the day. Instability is minimal, with some pockets of ~100 J/kg around. Therefore, some isolated thunder is possible on Thursday, but overall it will just be rain.

Greater forcing arrives late Thursday afternoon as another fgen band arrives, along with the RRQ of the upper jet, and the surface low tracking south of the area. This will be the start of more widespread rain into Thursday night.

Long Term...Thursday Night Through Wednesday

Active pattern expected with two systems to contend with. The first system will be Thursday night into Friday. FGEN band expected to set up north and west of Green Bay, which should bring another round of rain, especially north and west of the Fox Valley (Green Bay and Appleton) Thursday evening. Meanwhile low prosier is expected to move into the western Great Lakes by 12z Friday, thus rain chances will spread eastward into east-central Wisconsin late Thursday night into Friday morning. NBM probabilities were in the 40-80% range for a half inch or greater, with only a 10-40% chance over an inch across central and north-central Wisconsin.
With the low track south of the area, gusty northerly winds are expected late Thursday night into Friday night which will impact outdoor activities, especially in northeast Wisconsin.

Canadian high pressure will build into the region Friday night with dry conditions expected on Saturday under partly cloudy skies. The dry conditions will continue on Sunday, although clouds will be on the increase. Models are pointing to elevated convection breaking out Sunday night into Monday as a warm front pushes northward. The Storm Prediction Center Day 6 outlook has portions of area outlined for the potential for severe weather.
It is not often Wisconsin is outlined in a Day 6 severe weather outlook from SPC> A strong cold front is expected to move across the area later Monday night into Tuesday morning, although timing is anticipated to change over the coming days. Not a really favorable time of day for severe weather, but it is a strong cold front with some decent dynamics to enhance lift. It could become warm ahead of the with highs well into the 70s on Monday.
High pressure will slide east across the area Tuesday night, then east of the area on Wednesday should result in dry conditions.

AVIATION
for 00Z TAF Issuance Issued at 642 PM CDT Wed Apr 23 2025

Isolated thunderstorms are developing over west-central WI this evening ahead of an approaching cold front. These storms will move across central WI and into the Fox Valley this evening before exiting over Lake Michigan around 4Z. Satellite data is capturing a few lightning flashes with these storms which may pass over the souther Fox Valley (OSH) between 01/04Z. Expect and storms to remain south of the central WI TAF sites (CWA and AUW). Otherwise north and west of the Fox Valley VFR conditions are forecast through the TAF period. Winds will shift around to the northwest behind the cold front overnight.

Primarily VFR conditions are expected on Thursday as high and mid level clouds start to move into the area ahead of a low pressure system forecast to lift across northern IL. Scattered showers may develop over the Fox Valley during the morning and light north and west into the afternoon with more widespread precipitation arriving during the late afternoon/evening.

KGRB/KATW...Main focus in the near term at KGRB and KATW is if any thunderstorms move over these terminals late this evening (01-04Z).
Isolated thunderstorms are developing over west-central WI late this afternoon, however, radar trends favor these storms remaining south of both KGRB and KATW as they move east. For now keep a -SHRA in a PROB30 group from 01/04Z to account for the potential precip, but left TS out of both TAFs. Behind these storms some CAMs show a brief period of fog develop before a cold front moves through overnight, but confidence this occurs is too low to include in either TAF.

GRB WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES
None.