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Bottom line it for me Beau...
For southern Illinois and far western Kentucky...
Severe or extreme weather risk for today, tonight, and tomorrow: 0%
Fire risk/danger will be quite high today. Please don't burn brush or leaves. Burn bans are still in effect for numerous counties.
Today - Sun and clouds. High near 77 degrees. Southeast winds 5-10 mph.
Tonight - Increasing clouds tonight. Cool. Low near 45-47 degrees. South.southeast winds 5-10 mph.
Tomorrow - Mostly cloudy. A 60% chance for showers - a rumble of thunder is possible. Rainfall totals from 0.00"-0.30" most likely. High temperatures early in the day then falling temperatures during the late afternoon. Best chance of rain will be between 9 am and 3 pm. South winds 10-15 mph. Winds becoming west/northwest during the afternoon at speeds of 10-15 mph. High temperature near 68 degrees.
Saturday night - Showers ending. Decreasing cloudiness. Cooler. Low temperatures in the middle to upper 30s. West/northwest winds at 5-10 mph.
Sunday - Partly cloudy. Cooler. High temperature near 52-55 degrees. West/northwest winds at 10 mph.
Your seven day forecast from the NWS can be viewed here - click here.
Your local and regional radar for the rain event tomorrow - click here.
Barometer reading this morning is in the 30.20-30.40" range. Last 24 hours of data - click here.
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If you missed my thoughts on the upcoming winter then check yesterday's post.
No extreme or severe weather is expected in the near term. October and November have been very quiet - with the exception of the one outbreak. Which was quite impressive. Here is some more information on our lull in severe weather. Click here.
Unfortunately, our drought continues to grow worse. A more active pattern has been my thinking for the middle and end of November. We will see how it plays out in the coming days and weeks. We desperately need rain.
A frontal system will push towards our region late tonight and on Saturday. This will bring a broken band of showers with it. Rainfall totals are expected to range from 0.00"-0.30". This is not an impressive event. I am concerned that some areas may not see much rainfall at all.
You can see on my regional radar view - rain is already moving into Missouri. Click images for larger views (as always).
And remember that winter is not too far off! Here is a new program I am using for the upcoming winter. It is called GR-Earth. It has a nice precipitation type algorithm. Check out the Texas, Panhandle this morning. That is heavy thundersnow and mixed precipitation!
Here is another screen grab with snowfall totals - 3 hour totals.
Here is what one model is forecasting for tomorrow morning (around 6-8 am)
The frontal system will help usher in cooler temperatures for Saturday night and Sunday. A roller-coaster pattern (get used to hearing that in the coming weeks and months) is taking shape for our region. The models are having an extremely difficult time discerning how much cold air moves into our local region. At the end of the day, as I like to say, we will see a mix of warm and cold days in the upcoming week. A more impressive push of cold air is forecast towards the end of next week or into the following week. Some timing issues with that cold wave - will need to tweak the forecast.
I am also watching a "clipper" system for next Thursday - could spread some frozen precipitation into the Ohio Valley.
One item of interest - a lot of the data seems to indicate that the division between the cold air to our north and warm air to our south will flirt in and out of our region for much of the remainder of the month. During the past week we had temperatures in the 20s on some mornings and temperatures in the 70s (near 80 yesterday) on a few afternoons. A roller-coaster pattern. A few cold days and a few warm days. This may continue for awhile.
As far as precipitation - a system will push to our south and east during the Sunday night and Tuesday time frame. The majority of the rainfall will be to our south and east - portions of central and eastern Kentucky and Tennessee can expect some much needed rainfall.
Looking far ahead - to the week of the 22nd. I have been keeping my eye on this potential storm for awhile. Still way too far out for certainties. I will keep watching. We would likely be on the warm side of the low - meaning showers and thunderstorms. An impressive set-up for a Midwest snowstorm. Click for large image - the main thing you are looking for on this image is the gradient. Sharp gradient across our region and the Missouri Valley. Hints of a possible storm/low pressure.
Our drought continues to grow worse. I took this photo in Massac County, Illinois yesterday. You can see that some of the ponds are becoming dry. This is the case for many ponds in our region.
I have the latest drought maps from the Drought Monitor web-site. There are no surprises on these maps. The drought continues to grow worse and spread over more territory. Click on all the images for a larger view.
The first map is showing the percent of pasture loss - note that Kentucky is now in the 80 percent numbers. This map shows the percent of land in poor to very poor conditions.
These next two maps are centered on the Ohio Valley. The brown areas area much below normal precipitation. The maps are showing the percent of normal precipitation for the past 60 and 180 days. This is an extreme dry spell.
The next map is the Palmer Drought Index - you can see that we are in a serious drought situation.
We need several inches of rainfall to make up for the deficits. What would help the situation would be several months of above normal rainfall. I am hoping that winter will provide just that. It is difficult to break a drought. Drought feeds drought.
Let's take a look at the month to date rainfall and then let's take a look at the last few months and the last 12 months. You can see that this drought did not start "suddenly" - it has been an ongoing problem that has grown worse with time.
Here are the latest Dipole forecast maps for the winter months - the area of above normal precipitation is in blue. This covers the December through February time frame. I am concerned about just how close the below normal precipitation is to our region. Let's hope we can avoid the dry weather in the months to come. We do not need to enter spring in drought conditions.
Temperature outlook from the Dipole model. Red indicates above normal temperatures.
- 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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