Hope you enjoyed yesterday's sunny weather, with highs in the 70s, because we're in for yet another long round of gray and drippy weather until early next week. That's us, above, on Thursday - in the clear. But you can see the weather to our west. Not clear. Headed our way. Here's a better look.

We reached a fine 73 degrees in the sunshine yesterday at BWI. Readings from around the region went as high as 79 degrees just east of the DC area. But now we're back in the soup, waiting for the next cold front to drift our way and stall for the weekend. That will leave us with more unsettled weather, with intermittent showers, and maybe an isolated thundershower or two.

Forecasters are watching a flow of warm, moist air moving up from the south ahead of the next cold front. It's coming to us courtesy of that big storm system over the upper Midwest - the source of lots of really bad weather this week - snow, rain, and tornadoes - out on the Plains. It's the counterclockwise flow around that low that's bringing us these mild temperatures and gray skies, and maybe some rain or gusty showers developing from west to east as the day goes by.

As bad as it looks to our west, forecasters in Sterling do not believe this system will bring severe weather this far east. Instead, they say, the system is expected to weaken.

The front is expected to stall to our west on Saturday, leaving us in this mild, gray and breezy limbo until the front pushes past us and out to sea. By Sunday we should be on the cold side of the front. Temperatures are expected to be back in the 50s Sunday, with some sunshine breaking through. Nighttime lows will fall back in to the 30s.

Forecasters think we'll finally break out of the pattern by Tuesday, with seasonable temperatures and sunshine at least until late in the week, when a new storm system may come into view.