Messages
Seasonable temperatures in the 80s continue this week with mostly dry weather expected.
Plaincast — the National Weather Service forecast, decoded into plain English
What is an Area Forecast Discussion?
Area Forecast Discussions are the real forecasts, written 3 to 4 times daily by NWS meteorologists reading the models and interpreting what they mean for your area. They offer far deeper insight than any weather app, but they're written in dense meteorological shorthand. Plaincast uses Anthropic's Claude to summarize them into plain English, side by side with the annotated original.
Plaincast decodes the National Weather Service's Area Forecast Discussion — the real forecast, written 3 to 4 times a day by the meteorologist on shift — into plain English. The discussion is where a forecaster explains their reasoning: which models disagree, what they are watching, and how confident they are. Below is the current edition for St. Louis, with its shorthand expanded. The full experience — an AI plain-English summary beside the annotated original — loads with JavaScript, and every one of the 68 forecast offices has its own edition.
Short Term
A ridge of high pressure in the Southwest US and a trough over the Great Lakes has led to a subsident upper level flow through our area. That promotes high pressure and dry weather. At the surface, broad high pressure extends from western Ontario south into northern Missouri this afternoon with this high gradually nudging east over the next couple days. Tonight we'll see winds go light and temperatures drop into the low 60s and upper 50s. For some this will be the first time we've seen 50s since June. Clouds have the potential to complicate the cooling forecast tonight, especially in central Missouri. A limited attempt at moisture return northward through the Plains tonight may trigger an area of convection in Nebraska, tracking southeast into western Missouri. The rain from this likely stays west of our forecast area, but clouds have a better potential to spread into central Missouri, potentially holding temperatures a bit warmer overnight, in the low 60s. Tomorrow will be a very similar day to today, though perhaps a few degrees warmer. The high slides east allowing winds to turn southeasterly. Another day of sun will help to modify the air mass back into the low to mid 80s.
This is the plain-text edition, decoded without AI so it loads anywhere. Read the whole St. Louis discussion at /o/LSX/, see what changed since the last one, or open The National Desk for where the weather is today.