ONE FOR THE BOOKS....

Early Wednesday afternoon, powerful Hurricane Michael made landfall along the Florida Panhandle as a record-setting high end Category 4 storm. The National Hurricane Center reported Michael's sustained winds were near 155 mph as the eye of the storm moved ashore near Mexico City, Florida at 1:30 p.m. ET October 10.

According to NOAA's historical hurricane tracks database, Michael is the first Category 4 storm to make landfall along the Florida Panhandle since records began in 1851. This GOES East satellite imagery shows Hurricane Michael just as the storm was approaching the Florida coast.

Another view of the eye as it comes ashore near Mexico city, Florida. Looks like it's ready to blink at you. What a perspective.

At landfall, the storm’s 155 mph peak winds ranked fourth highest on record for a hurricane hitting the continental U.S. and the pressure ranked third lowest (the lower the pressure, the stronger the storm), below even Hurricane Andrew in 1992 and Katrina in 2005.

Once again, this incredible October storm is a testament to the extreme weather the country has endured in 2018.

Speaking of extremes, temperatures have taken the old swan dive. These are the highs reported Tuesday. Much of my area was in the upper 70s to low 80s. 84 In the Quad Cities.

Wednesday night at 9:00pm readings were far from that sinking into the 40s and headed for lows in the 30s. Nothing like switching seasons in less than 24 hours.

Now that the cool air has invaded, it looks to rule the roost into early next week. These are the 5 day 850 temperature departures on the GFS. A crisp weekend ahead.

As far as storms go, I don't see anything significant for quite some time in my local area. Here's the 16 day rainfall forecast through October 18th. Been awhile since we've seen models cranking out amounts that low.

If you haven't brought out the coat yet, this is the time to do it. The transition to winter is moving along right on schedule. Roll weather...TS