A round of showers and thunderstorms is expected on Friday and again on Saturday, with cooler air and a brisk wind arriving in the Garden State on Sunday.

Here are your weather headlines for Friday, May 13, 2016...

Rain Round 1: Friday

Thursday sure was a gorgeous day for New Jersey, with temperatures as warm as 84 degrees (Jersey City) with abundant sunshine all day. I hope you didn't get used to it, however, as our weather becomes unsettled again on Friday. Here's the breakdown:
--Timing: Showers will be possible Friday morning, but the biggest push of rain will occur between about 11 a.m. and 7 p.m. Friday. (On-air, I'm calling it "between lunchtime and dinnertime".) Any given location will probably only see an hour or two of rain within that window.
--Location: Everyone in the state will likely see rain on Friday.
--Impacts: Pockets of steady to heavy rain may obscure visibility and make for slippery travel conditions. Rainfall totals are forecast to end up in the 0.5" to 1.0" range. While embedded thunderstorms are possible, widespread flooding and severe weather are not expected.

Rain Round 2: Saturday

Friday night will be dry, and Saturday will actually start off fine. Through the morning hours, we will see a mix of sun and clouds with a stiff breeze and warm temperatures in the lower 70s. However, along comes our next chance for rain later in the day:
--Timing: Another round of showers and thunderstorms will affect New Jersey between about 1 p.m. and 10 p.m. Saturday. Storm intensity is expected to peak just before sunset, in the early evening hours.
--Location: Everyone in the state will probably see at least a little bit of rain on Saturday. However, truly heavy rain will be limited to the heaviest storms.
--Impacts: Isolated strong to severe thunderstorms will be possible, carrying the potential for torrential downpours, gusty winds, and small hail. Most locations in the Garden State will see rainfall amounts around a quarter-inch, but totals will be higher within the strongest storms.

Back to the Cool Side

Behind each band of rain will come a cold front, and behind these fronts will come the return of cooler air. High temperatures on Sunday will be held about 10 degrees below normal, only reaching the lower 60s at best. Alone, 60s aren't too bad - but the chill will come with a gusty wind (possibly blowing up to 40 mph on Sunday). At least skies will become mostly sunny on Sunday, and we'll enter our longest stretch of dry weather since April.

You'll really feel a chill in the air Monday morning, as low temperatures dip into the upper 30s for a good part of the state. Gardeners, stay extra vigilant as we'll see a pretty good chance of a frost to start the new workweek.

Monday will be very similar to Sunday: Mostly sunny, windy, and cool with highs in the lower to mid 60s.

In Thursday's edition of the MDZ weather blog, I promised a solid warmup through the middle of next week. The latest model data, however, has dramatically backed off the warmup. I've trended my forecast in the same direction, for now, keeping high temperatures below the 70 degree mark for Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. That midweek period will feature some rain too, but I don't want to pinpoint details until this forecast becomes much clearer.

Dan Zarrow is Chief Meteorologist for Townsquare Media New Jersey. Follow him on Facebook or Twitter for the latest forecast and realtime weather updates.

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