COLORS PEAKING FOR PEEPERS

Two months from today it Christmas, but who's counting? More important, we are into the last week of October and for you peepers, the fall color is reaching its peak. I can't say it's overly vivid where I live, but that might be partially due to the warm, dry fall. That said, there are a few hot looking trees, and it's a special time of year that doesn't last long, especially after a hard freeze like we saw Friday morning.

Speaking of the cold Friday morning, If you didn't notice the extensive frost and what your thermometer read, it's worth noting that in some of the cold drainage areas (typically valleys or low-lying locations), temperatures crashed into the low to mid 20s. A few locations had readings below freezing for at least 8 hours. That constitutes a hard freeze! Here's a sampling of some of the reported lows. Vinton in the Cedar River Valley plunged to 21 degrees. Waterloo was right behind.

A very cool microscale event took place last night that was confined to the Mississippi and Wisconsin River Valleys. As nighttime cooling progressed, the air above the river became substantially colder than the water temperatures, which are still mild. With light winds, condensation just above the warm water allowed dense fog to form that was localized to the immediate river valley. You can see it nicely on the visible satellite image early Friday.

I live right on the Mississippi and snapped a couple of shots of the fog as it was burning off from my deck. That's the Q Casino near the Wisconsin HWY 151 bridge. When I first got up, I could not see across the river, the fog was so thick. I should have taken a picture then but didn't think of it. Anyway, while it was gray and foggy at my place, if you went a couple blocks east or west of the river, the sun was out in all its glory. Eventually the sun had its way and for the few of us who saw fog, it burned off by mid-morning.

Another cool aspect of Friday was the temperatures, which went up 24 degrees in 3 hours time with the addition of sunshine shortly after sunrise. (As you can tell, it doesn't take much to excite me)! Anyway, we all ended up with a beautiful Friday with highs of 55 to 60.

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PEACE AND QUIET THIS WEEKEND...

The remainder of the weekend will be influenced by an upper air low that slowly drifts across the southern Plains and lower Midwest. As in previous outlooks, it still looks as if any rain of consequence will stay to the south of my area as a dry E/SE surface wind holds precipitation at bay. While it's possible, a stray light shower or sprinkle could pop up Saturday or Saturday evening, it’s more likely the dry low levels keep it up in the clouds as virga. Mid and high clouds will become more of a factor though Saturday as they fight northward around the system. With passing clouds, highs should mainly hold in the mid to upper 50s. Sunday, clouds should be less of a factor, with enough in the way of broken sunshine to allow readings to warm into the range of 60 north to 65 south. A pretty good end to the weekend.

Next week's system continues to be a challenge, leading to what I would consider a low confidence forecast. Several days ago, models were showing a widespread rain event. Now, closer to its arrival, data is better sampled and models are handling the strong upper level jet streak and its energy differently. While the general idea of a deepening system is uniform, the track and amount of rainfall generated isn't. Both the EURO and GFS track a closed upper air low southeast across central Missouri. That fact in itself keeps the heaviest rain swath confined to my southwest counties Monday night into Tuesday. Where things get uncertain is how far east the lighter rain can get into the rest of my area. The GFS is banking on enough dry air northeast of the Quad Cities to keep that part of my area dry. However, from about the Quad Cities southwest, it shows rain totals going from 1/2 inch to over an inch in SE Iowa and WC Illinois. Here's its rainfall depiction Monday night through Tuesday.

The EURO enables saturation further east and allows rain to fall over all of my area, albeit lighter northeast of the Quad Cities. Additionally, heavier rain falls in much of eastern Iowa, not just the southeast.

Flat out, this is a hard one to call. We are still 3 days out from the event and with this type of set-up that involves phasing, changes are still possible. I don't expect them to be massive, but a small shift SW or NE could make a big difference in who gets rain and how much. In fact, any shift SW could leave the NE 2/3rds dry and the SW 1/3rd with only light rain. I personally am concerned about the amount of dry air the system has to overcome, and I think whatever solution settles on the best rains falling over the SW half of my area (especially from the Quad Cities southwest) has the best chance of verifying. That said, my idea is nothing more than a hunch for now and time will tell. Another day of data should confirm where this is going. Stay tuned.

Enjoy your weekend and as always, roll weather...TS