November 6, 2010:
Evening:
Thought this image was nice. You can see how cold it is in our region - even colder to our northeast. But, look out west. It is already warming up! The wind lines are at the 850 mb level. Warm air advection is starting to our west. Tomorrow will be warmer - Monday even warmer! (click for large view)
Good morning everyone!
Don't forget that you can find me on Facebook and Twitter (under Beau Dodson). Add me for more frequent weather updates and information on weather events.
Bottom line it for me Beau...
For southern Illinois and far western Kentucky...
Severe or extreme weather risk for today, tonight, and tomorrow: 0%
Turn back your clocks 1 hour tonight AND change the batteries in your NOAA Weather Radio and smoke detectors.
Fire departments continue to ask everyone to please not burn brush or debris.
Your seven day forecast - click here.
Chilly this morning - temperatures rising quickly out of the 20s/30s and into the 40s. Winds will be light. High temperature later today around 48-50 degrees.
Tonight - clear and chilly. Light winds. Low temperature around 28-30 degrees.
Sunday - Pleasant - warmer. Mostly sunny. Few afternoon clouds. High temperature near 63 degrees. Winds from the southwest at 10 mph.
Watching a system for Friday/Saturday. The next 2 weeks will not be boring. Plenty to watch in the weather department. Stay tuned!
Barometer reading this morning is in the 30.35-30.45" range. Last 24 hours of data - click here.
I am feeling pretty good about my call for November to be below normal in temperatures. It is the only month of the 3 month period that I started feeling that way (Sept-November). Lot of the big models support warmer than normal. We shall see
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We want to remember all of those who died in the Evansville, Indiana tornado - 5 years ago. It was a great tragedy for our region. All of the local meteorologists worked this event and it was difficult. WPSD put together this news story that ran last night during their news broadcast. Click here. The NWS has also put together a page - click here.
You can also hear Meteorologist Wayne Hart recount his story as he covered this event - WeatherBrains episode 249. Click here. WEHT (where he works) also put together this story. Click here.
The image below is the Evansville, Indiana tornado. This tornado crossed the river multiples time - once again proving that rivers DO NOT protect you from tornadoes.
Well, it was a cold morning. I recorded a low of 22 degrees here at the Weather Observatory in the instrument shelter. That is the most accurate reading here at my place. Paducah recorded 24 degrees and Carbondale, Illinois recorded 22 degrees. Mt Vernon recorded a low of 16 degrees.
The weather is fairly calm for our region. A number of locations reported smoke yesterday afternoon and evening. At times the smoke even reduced visibility. This smoke moved in from the northwest - Shawnee Forest. You could even see the smoke from satellite images. The Paducah, Kentucky NWS has posted a few satellite images. Click here to view those. Thanks to Christine Wielgos for posting those satellite images.
The smoke was coming from a prescribed burn in the Shawnee Forest area. Because of the drought conditions the forestry department has been able to get into areas that are normally swamplands. They were burning off brush and non-native trees.
Katie Walls, from WSIL, put together this story on the Shawnee Forest burn. Click here.
Here are a couple of photo grabs from my tower cams (thank you Lew Legacy for emailing the grabs to me). As with all images on this page - you can click to make the image larger.
The next few days will continue to bring dry weather. Our drought conditions will continue to intensify.
Here are some maps made by the Springfield, Missouri - NWS and the Paducah, KY NWS. They sum up our weather in graphical form.
Warmer weather will build back into our region on Sunday and continue into the work week. The above map shows you the high temperatures expected for Monday afternoon. Quite the difference from what we experienced yesterday and today. Remember I told you that we would be on a roller coaster pattern. This will likely continue into the winter months.
Another illustration of the roller coaster pattern (below). The following two images are from the GFS ensembles (ensembles are basically the same computer model but tweaked a little bit different each time they run it). Ensembles are supposed to provide a better representation of the future weather.
The first image is the expected temperature departure (how much above or below normal the temperature will be) for this coming Thursday (red is above normal temperatures) and the second map shows November 19th. As you can see on the first map we are expecting much above normal temperatures later this week (for most of the week for that matter) and below normal temperatures the week after.
The next significant chance of precipitation will likely hold off until the end of the week (Wednesday night could bring a few clouds and a small chance for a shower towards the western part of the region). A fairly strong storm system will move out of the Rockies and into the central United States. There is some question as to whether there can be enough return moisture flow to trigger severe thunderstorms over our region. The Storm Prediction Center believes that there will not be enough moisture. They could change their thoughts in later outlooks, as well - they are not bullish on moisture return, however.
We will keep an eye on this system - if it does impact our local counties then it wouldn't be until Friday or Saturday. I am more in the EC camp vs the GFS. GFS doesn't seem to be handling the pattern very well. The EC is a slower and stronger storm - more to our west than south.
The image below is what the GFS is showing for Thursday night and Friday (this model is likely too fast - I would slow it down a day - exact track of the low is also in question). You can see a strong storm system over the central United States. Low pressure moving into Iowa and Illinois - cold front trailing behind with an area of showers and thunderstorms. Too early to make a call on whether or not severe weather will occur. Plenty of time to keep an eye on this system. Click image for larger view. Image is from www.wright-weather.com A great site for model data.
You can also see a fairly strong wind field at the 500 mb level (high above us) on Friday (again the GFS could be a bit too fast on the timing). This is another ingredient that I look for when forecasting strong weather. We need to see how well moisture returns - you need moisture in order to fuel storms. See that red and purple area over our region? Those are strong winds aloft.
In the long range -
There are signals of quite the battle of the air masses setting up over the United States after the 19th or 20th of this month.
Here is what one model is forecasting - the model has a cold bias. There are definitely signals of winter on the map.
The new 8-14 day outlook shows probabilities for below normal temperatures down the road. I still believe that November actually ends up below normal in the temperature department for our area. This would be the only month of the three months in the fall forecast with below normal temperatures. We will see how it plays out.
For those following the weather in central and eastern Kentucky - Chris Bailey has posted some images of snow. Chris is a meteorologist and I support his efforts in keeping the public informed. I think he does a wonderful job. You can view those images here.
And finally - the Paducah, Kentucky NWS has posted a great tutorial on how to use their forecast products. You can view that PDF file by clicking here.
- 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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