The Weather Observatory Tower Cams have been busy lately with quite a few deer! We counted five in the east field on Monday with 10+ in the southeast and southwest fields. They are moving around. The streaming cams can be viewed here (best time for deer is during the early morning and early evening hours).
High pressure continues to dominate our local weather pattern. This has kept the skies mostly clear - lot of blue sky over the last few days. Wonderful fall weather!
The last few days have brought below normal temperatures - however, that is about to change. We are going to move back into a pattern that favors normal to above normal temperatures as we push further into the week and weekend. Here is a look at how the Tuesday high temperature departures looked (blue was below normal temperatures and the red colors were above normal temperatures)
Temperature departure map (above) for October 5th (yesterday). Map supplied by http://www.wright-weather.com/
Now let's look ahead to this coming weekend. I picked Sunday for an example. Note the red and yellow colors over our region (the map below). That means we are going to be above to much above normal in the temperature department. I guess we should be used to that by now! Click map for a closer look at the numbers being predicted (the number you see on the map indicates how many degrees above normal)
The normal high temperature for this time of the year is around 74-75 degrees and the normal low temperature is around 48-50 degrees. For current conditions here on top of the hill in Massac County or our western Kentucky weather instruments - click here.
Expect a rise in temperatures starting today and this will continue into the weekend and early next week. Nothing uncomfortable, though. Unlike the recent weeks when we were hot and humid. Temperatures today into the weekend will be in the upper 70s and lower 80s. Not too bad - all things considered. Certainly bearable.
Your official seven day forecast, from the National Weather Service. can be viewed by clicking here. They may or may not add some small rain chances towards the Sunday/Monday/Monday night time frame (front moving in with an associated upper level low). Certainly nothing impressive is forecast in the near term. But, we will keep an eye on it over the coming days.
I don't see any significant rain chances in the near term. The drought will continue to worsen as we push further into October. We may have to wait until the middle/end of the month for a better storm track (meaning better chances of precipitation). It still looks like November should become quite a bit more active for our region (and then the winter months). Let's hope - we definitely need to break this drought.
We may see a new tropical storm form in the Caribbean next week - if we do see formation then it would be named Paula. Eventually this system could threat the Gulf of Mexico over to Florida/Cuba. Still some time to keep an eye on this developing system.
The official 5 day rainfall forecast (see the map below) - doesn't offer a lot of hope for our region (again no surprise here). Click image for larger view.
The month to date rainfall (below)- no surprise on this map. Basically zero! Unless you want to count dew and frost.
And let's take a look at the entire United States - DRY DRY DRY - the east coast is the only area with significant/widespread rainfall. Map can be viewed below - red areas indicate little rain has fallen.
The official 8-14 day outlook (below) from the National Weather Service also indicates below normal precipitation is expected. Not what any of us want to hear. The brown area on this map indicates area that favor below normal precipitation. Click image for larger view.
October continues to look dry and mild. Below normal precipitation and above normal temperatures will be more common than below normal temps.. We wiill see how that forecast works out. We did okay in September. Still have to get through October and November for our fall forecast grades.
One final map :) - the NAO (click for more info on what the NAO is) is forecast to go negative as we push further into the month (thanks Allan Huffman for the reminder to check the NAO). Normally this means cooler weather for our region - so this is something we will be watching in the coming days.
Map showing the NAO numbers - click for larger viewer.
- Meteorologist Beau Dodson
McCracken County Office of Emergency Management
For the latest watches and warnings please visit your local National Weather Service Office http://www.weather.gov/organization.php
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