EVENING: Stray showers, mix of sun and clouds. Temps in the 50s.

TONIGHT: Mostly cloudy and milder. Low 45.

THURSDAY: Mostly cloudy in the morning, more sunshine for the afternoon. High 66.

Most of Wednesday provided enough sunshine to warm us near 60 degrees for the afternoon. We had enough instability in the afternoon to create spotty showers and a few isolated thunderstorms. Some areas reported pea-size hail. These showers will diminish as we start to lose the sunshine this evening.

Thursday will be dry even though we begin somewhat cloudy. More sunshine is expected in the afternoon with seasonable highs in the mid 60s.

We are getting more confident in the forecast for the start of the weekend. An area of moisture arrives Friday to give us several hours of a steady rain that should bring around 0.4″ to 0.8″ of rain for most. This system is slow to exit and will likely produce a drizzly and cloudy Saturday morning, with drier trends for Saturday afternoon/albeit cloudy. Another system arrives for the end of the weekend and the latest guidance suggests that it arrive late Sunday which means our Sunday morning should be dry. This area of low pressure may stay closer to the coast, meaning more rain to the east of the Midstate. A broad area of low pressure with a trough then descends south from Canada after the weekend creating another pocket of cooler air to start next week.

The extended outlook shows the first week of May remains chilly with highs in the 50s and 60s, lows mainly in the 40s.

-Meteorologist Eric Finkenbinder