Showery. Breezy. Cloudy. Cool. A familiar story, as about 18 of April's 26 days so far have featured some sort of precipitation here in New Jersey. But our precipitation grand total for the month-to-date is only running slightly above normal.

Radar is only picking up some sprinkles and patchy drizzle early on this Monday morning. But it's certainly going to feel damp, with the puddles and mist hanging around from Sunday's rainfall. The most widespread shower activity of the day will likely come Monday afternoon. Meanwhile, skies will be grey and temperatures will be cool. 40s in the morning, peaking at barely 50 degrees. That is about 15 below seasonal norms.

So nothing dangerous, nothing severe, and nothing wintry (aside from a few snowflakes in far NW NJ perhaps). Overall, just a not-very-nice weather day.

We'll finally dry out for good Monday evening, with clearing skies overnight. Temperatures will be on the chilly side, bottoming out near 40 degrees. Keep in mind, our record low temperatures for this final week of April are near the freezing mark. Normal lows are in the mid 40s. So 30s would be rather unusual and unseasonably cold here.

On Tuesday, we'll manage to "thread the needle" between our departing storm system and the next one in line. That will result in a reasonably pleasant day. Expect good sunshine, with some clouds building through the afternoon. The lone exception will be southwestern New Jersey, as a little disturbance could spark a shower around midday Tuesday. High temperatures will improve to the lower 60s — not quite seasonable, but close.

As a warm front lifts through New Jersey Wednesday morning, the entire state could see a quick burst of light-moderate rain. Unfortunately, we're not really going to taste the warmer-temperature effects of that front, with lots of clouds and cool temps in the mid 50s.

The biggest weather story of the week is a strong storm system set to arrive late Wednesday night through Thursday. Plain and simple, we're facing another round of nasty weather conditions: heavy rain, gusty winds, and strong thunderstorms.

The overall timing of that rainfall, from first to last drops, looks to be 2 a.m. to 8 p.m. According to the latest models, the heaviest rain is expected during the daytime hours, from Thursday late morning until Thursday mid-afternoon. Current estimates put rainfall at 1 to 2 inches, with ambient (non-thunderstorm) wind gusts to about 50 mph. With high temperatures bumping into the mid 60s, there will be abundant moisture and heat (energy) to fuel any thunderstorms.

On the backside of that storm system Friday (the first day of May), there will be a few showers, residual clouds, and breezy conditions. High temps should push to about 60 degrees — not bad if we can eke out a few breaks of sunshine.

And I'm loving the forecast for next weekend so far. Partly sunny and lower 70s Saturday. Mostly cloudy and mid 70s Sunday. It's not a very confident call at this point, especially with some showers in the neighborhood. But I'm happy to provide some realistic optimism! We'll see how this forecast evolves as the week presses on.

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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