Tracking near record warmth, fire weather, storms, and snow through Tuesday night

TONIGHT: Mostly clear and chilly with lows in the lower 40s.

TOMORROW: Mostly sunny and breezy with highs in the upper 70s. Record high temperatures likely if we exceed 77 degrees. There will be an elevated fire danger as humidity will be low with gusty winds.

EXTENDED: Strong winds kick up on Monday, pushing temperatures into the upper 70s across much of Mid-Missouri. The record high in Columbia is 77 degrees. There will be an elevated fire danger as gusty winds pick up to 35 mph with low relative humidity. Tuesday will be even warmer with records in jeopardy again as highs could top 80 degrees. An approaching cold front could trigger a few showers and storms, some of which could be strong. The better risk of severe weather looks to lie to our east and southeast, but we'll keep an eye out for a few storms with isolated large hail. A dramatic cool down will happen quickly as colder air rushes in directly behind the cold front. This could turn any lingering precipitation over to snowfall overnight Tuesday into Wednesday morning. No accumulation is expected, but temperatures will drop to the upper 20s Wednesday morning, and only rebound into the upper 30s with gusty winds. Wind chills will likely be below freezing, and lows will fall to about 20 on Thursday morning. Thursday is closer to our seasonal average with highs near 50 and more sunshine. We'll gradually warm up with highs back into the lower 70s with dry weather for the weekend.