WET, BUT FAR FROM WILD...

From the University of Iowa Cardiology floor in Iowa City, here's wishing everybody a fabulous Tuesday. The dissapointing news on my part, is that I'm back in the hospital due to complications from a bacterial desease and a couple of damaged heart valves. My medical team is diligently working on a plan to get the bacteria out of my blood stream and repair the bad valves, before a clot can break free and find a home in my brain. I'll have more on a specific course of action when one becomes one becomes solidified in the next 24-48 hours. Meantime, thank you all for the your prayers and kind words of encouragement.

NOTHING SEVERE LOCALLY

Going into Monday, there was plenty of buzz around the Midwest regarding a severe weather outbreak with the potential to produce strong tornadoes. The Storm Prediction Center early Monday showed a level 3 of 5 risk for strong storms across my southern counties.

If you happened to read Nick's blog (right here Sunday night) he indicated there were several limiting factors that could make severe weather far from a slam dunk, not the least of which was morning showers and storms that would limit afternoon instability. Nick went on to explain why he thought the main thrust of any strong storms would be well to the south of my local area. That was a bold call and an excellent one with only a couple of wind reports in WC Illinois.

While it wasn't a wild day, it was a wet one, especially in the morning with much of the area seeing at least 1/2 to 1 inch of rain. Some localized areas likely saw more than that.

COOLER AND DRIER...

The two big takeways in our weather going forward are tied to cooler temperatures and lighter precipitation. NW flow aloft will become established that ensures that our air masses remain void of moisture as well as the unseasonably warm air of recent weeks. The GFS shows this for rainfall departures over the 10 day period MAY 1st to May 10th.

These are daily temperature departures for the period April 29th through May 9th.

Another aspect of our local weather will be the quiet look of the pattern. For the first time in more than a month we should be able to go more than a week without the threat of any severe weather. That's something we've not been able to do in more than a month. Until next time, roll weather...TS