- Sep 14, 2021

LOOKS LIKE ANOTHER WHIFF...

Monday was another warm day around the Midwest continuing our latest string of above normal temperatures. It was also another dry day, something we've seen too much of in many parts of my area going all the way back to spring. My northern counties did get close to getting some rain last night but it remained generally NW of a line from near Waterloo to Madison. See the rainfall analysis below ending at 9am Monday.

Here's a larger perspective showing the entire Midwest.

Below you can see what's been measured over the past week.

Many parts of the Midwest including my area have seen less that 10 percent of the 7 day mean.

Going back a month, the departures are more like 25-50 percent.

September has really gotten off to a really poor start as far as rainfall goes. This graphic shows only 1 day in September with rain falling at the Quad City Municipal Airport and that was a mere .09". It's extremely dry around my place on the north edge of the Quad Cities where we missed out on some heavy rains that fell on the south side of town in late August. It was all I could do to pound a stake in the ground!

It looks like most of us will whiff on the next rain chance Tuesday as a weak front passes during the morning and early afternoon, a poor time of day with limited instability. Some showers and storms may be ongoing around daybreak near the front up around HWY 20. However, if those exist, they are expected to quickly fizzle in the early morning and dissipate. By the time storms re-fire in the late afternoon or evening, the front is projected to be well south of my area and any new rains are likely to be in Missouri or central Illinois. There is a slight chance a couple could catch the far south but trends are not encouraging. The animation below depicts the evolution of the rain and its movement Monday night into Tuesday evening.

You can see the black hole that is my area show up on the precipitation forecasts through Tuesday night.

The GFS

The EURO

The 3K NAM

Long range trends are not very optimistic for precipitation either with the GFS showing totals like this the next 16 days.

That result in these 16 day departures.

The EURO offers up a little hope with a disturbance Friday night that the GFS does not see. Even it is not that exciting with amounts generally 1/10 of an inch or less and that's confined to the north.

That leads us to temperatures and while Tuesday will be another mild day, readings will cool and humidity levels will drop after the passage of the front Tuesday night through Wednesday. Highs upper 70s north to mid 80s south are expected Tuesday lowering to the mid to upper 70s areawide Wednesday.

By Thursday readings are in the way back up towards 80 and by the weekend we should be well above normal in the mid to perhaps upper 80s Saturday and Sunday. Humidity will increase some as well but now that crops are rapidly drying and soils are already that way, dew points should not get much above the low to mid 60s. That will help substantially keeping heat index values roughly the same as the actual temperature on the thermometer. Overall the next 10 days look to be on the warm side of the ledger with average departures looking like this on the GFS.