Good concert weather on the way

At the risk of jinxing things, the forecast indicates good weather for the upcoming weekend

That's good news for the thousands of people planning to attend Friday's concert and fireworks show at Memorial Park, the art festival downtown or any of the other myriad of outdoor activities on tap.

The National Weather Service is forecasting a slight - 20 percent - chance for storms Friday and Saturday.

Whether storms strike during the Bank of the West Celebrates America concert and fireworks at Memorial Park depends upon when a cold front moves through the area, said Tom Kines, meteorologist with AccuWeather Inc., the World-Herald's weather consultant. The festivities at the park are scheduled to run from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. The Guess Who and Grand Funk Railroad are performing.

The cold front that had been forecast to descend across the area today (Thursday), has been slow in moving across the continent, Kines said. Thursday morning, it was still in Montana. As a result, the front isn't expected to arrive in eastern Nebraska until sometime Friday evening or night. Its arrival should trigger storms in the area, Kines said, and those storms have the potential to be severe.

That doesn't mean, Kines said, that the festivities at the park will see rain.

"I don't think it's definite by any means," he said. "It's probably in the 20 to 40 percent category. If we have a storm, it could have a little bit of a punch to it."

Once the front passes through, temperatures should drop down to around normal for this time of year, which means highs in the mid-80s, Kines said.

That bodes will for the Summer Arts Festival, which starts at 11 a.m. Friday and concludes at 5 p.m. Sunday. It is being held along the Gene Leahy Mall.

"In general, it's going to be a pretty good weekend," Kines said. "The heat will be trimmed a bit, not Friday, but probably over the weekend, and eventually we'll get some lowering of the humidity."