A BREAK FROM THE HEAVY RAIN, IS THAT YOU?

After a very active couple of days, a break from the heavy rain is in sight. The pattern will remain in a bit of a holding pattern, but it should give way to drier conditions, especially Tuesday onwards Three-day rainfall (above) hit some remarkable levels for September across the area. Radar estimated across eastern Iowa, northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin topped 5" across a widespread area.

SEPTEMBER RAIN - DUBUQUE

SEPTEMBER RAIN - QUAD CITIES

Month-to-date rainfall totals across the area are now above normal for pretty much all the major metros. Officially, Dubuque is at 8.14" in September but this does not include Sunday morning's rainfall of at least 0.38". At approximately 8.52" that would be the fifth-wettest September on record to date. Records go back to 1873!

Davenport is sitting at 4.83" for the month not including Sunday's rainfall.

Unfortunately, it appears Cedar Rapids' Airport rain gauge failed so we will not have great historical record keeping of this event unless it was just a communication issue and the data still exists. An additional climate site in Cedar Rapids was at 4.22" of rain not including Sunday.

The good news is that over the next five days, the official forecast from the Weather Prediction Center is much quieter across the region. Monday is a watch item with more scattered showers and storms but we likely will not see a very organized complex of torrential rain, and severe weather is not likely.

Forecast models are showing scattered showers Monday in the region which could have locally moderate rainfall rates. Not expecting severe weather or torrential downpours with this activity. This looks to mainly by mid/late afternoon and through Monday evening.

With that said, some forecast models do try and put out an additional 0.5" to 1.0" across much of Iowa. This seems, high, to me given the pattern that will be in place. I think for most this will be insult rather than injury type of rainfall - a nuisance. But in some cases it may be enough to cause additional or prolonged flooding concerns.

Certainly the fields have a lot of water and could use a break as we step into harvest season.

Late September into early October we are once again sitting near the storm track. For the time being this looks to be a miss to the west with the heavier rainfall, but I do have some concerns and additional possibilities of heavy rain in the region based on tropical trouble in the Pacific. This fest of above-normal rainfall on the GEFS Sept. 26-Oct. 3 (above) I believe will originate from a potential hurricane hitting Mexico.

Invest EP99 is currently south of Mexico in the eastern Pacific Ocean. Ensemble guidance has this storm quickly spinning up into a hurricane and impacting somewhere near the Gulf of California. Historically this is a pretty good setup for heavy rain in our region with tropical moisture being shoved northwards.

The European Model takes this slug of moisture and times it quite well with a cold front sweeping through the Upper Midwest around Sept. 29-30. If this were to unfold, the end of the month could become a very wet period once again with heavy tropical rains. This is a long ways out and a lot can change in the next 10 days, but given our harvest window opening and ongoing flooding concerns, I do think it's warranted to bring up as a watch item going forward.

A faster cold front would mean cool, dry weather to kick off October while a slower cold front combined with a landfalling hurricane in Mexico could mean more heavy rain.

I'll wrap it up with a look at temperatures in the Quad Cities region. Comfortable weather heading through the week into next weekend. Aside from Monday's rain it's looking like quite a good week ahead. Enjoy it!

-Meteorologist Nick Stewart