THE GRASS IS GREENER FOR SOME
About as expected, a cold front saved its rain for my eastern counties Wednesday, roughly the ones near and beyond the Mississippi River. And as I indicated might happen with slow cell movement and lots of moisture, where it rained it poured. The Grass is definitely going to be greener where the downpours occurred. Here's the Doppler estimates of how much rain fell. Green denotes 1/2 inch with the yellow and orange pockets depicting amounts in the 2-3 inch range. New Windsor in Mercer County, Illinois picked up 4.50 inches of rain!
This was another miss for me in Dubuque and a number of my other northern counties where rain here the past 11 days has totaled 1/2 inch of less. Compare that to southern Iowa where 6.3 inches was measured in Lee County, Iowa over the same period. Bad luck!
After several days of warm and rather muggy weather, we are set to see a significant change in the pattern that will keep the steam that July is noted for well to the south and west of us for the foreseeable future. Watch in the 10 day animation how a closed 500mb vortex drops south through Canada and heads for the Lake Superior.
That closed circulation represents a pocket of chilly air that promises to bring below normal temperatures to the region as early as Thursday. Once here, they should lock in through the middle of the month. Here's the projected 10 day departures.
As early as Friday morning some of my northern counties may see lows in the upper 40s thanks to much drier air and strong radiational cooling.
Over the next 10 days here's what the EURO indicates for temperatures in the Quad Cities. Notice highs holding in the upper 70s to near 80. That is nice!
We've already had a few of these breaks for cool temperatures this warm season, especially when high pressure sets up that brings E/NE winds off the Great Lakes. Look at the water temperatures of Lake Superior, by far the deepest of the 5 lakes. They are still in the upper 30s to near 40 across the majority of Superior. Lake Michigan is still quite chilly as well. That certainly plays heavily into below normal temperatures when winds are coming off the cold water. That's known as air mass modification.
As for precipitation with this pattern we can from time to time get a disturbance to ride the edge of the cool air into the Midwest. However, this is contingent on the depth of the cool air and the dry air within it. If the push is too strong the boundary sets up further west and south and storms sweep most of their rains to the west and south in the NW flow circulation. This usually ends up being a fine line and one that is extremely difficult to see much in advance. Timing can also be a negative if a system passes when instability is limited in the morning or early afternoon. Additionally, any disturbances tend to be progressive in nature which leads to short precipitation windows. My point is that overall this pattern can get us some rain but it's usually light to moderate unless we can set on that boundary for 2-3 days.
We do have an opportunity for showers in this large scale set-up late Friday or Friday night. However I suspect the dry air will limit most of the showers to my far southern counties and even there they may not amount to much north of HWY 34. They should be gone by Saturday morning. That's what the EURO indicates with its precipitation totals limited to this.
The GFS is in reasonable agreement but somewhat lighter over the south.
The 3K NAM is really aggressive and much farther to the north. I have major reservations about its solution and currently discount it.
We may get a better shot next Tuesday when a strong summer cold front approaches from the NW. You can see showers and storms lined up along it.
What you can't see is the chilly air that is coming south with another one of those Canadian highs sending winds to the E/NE. That brings in a new batch of cool air that should re-introduce another round of temperatures in the 70s Wednesday of next week. Here's the departures for Tuesday July 11th.
Well, that's where things stand at this time. Have a great day and enjoy the pleasant change to cooler, drier conditions. Roll weather...TS
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