TUESDAY AM RADAR – FAST EAST LOADING RADAR
Storms over southeast IND into north central KY and over northeast IND into northwest OH. There were some weak scattered showers over eastern MT, western ND, western SD.
RAINFALL LAST 24 HRS ending 0700 cdt 19 SEPTEMBER
There were 2 area of Moderate rain yesterday and both of them were over the Midwest. The first area saw 0.25-1.0″/ 6-25mm over 60% of northwest half of MO… northeast 25% of KS, western and central IA and southeast third of MN. Eastern IA was dry. The 2nd area saw 0.25 to 1.5″/ 6-38mm with 60% coverage over central MO, 70% coverage over all of ILL and IND into western third of KY. All of the Plains regions was dry as was MOST of the Delta.
MAX TEMPS MONDAY
60s over MN and northern WI… 70s over eastern MT/ WY, all of ND, SD, IA, eastern NEB, MO, southern WI … 80s over OH, IND, ILL, KY, TN, northern ARK, OK, the TX Panhandle, KS, western NEB, eastern COL … 90s over rest of TX, southern ARK, LA, MS, AL, GA.
1-5 DAY = There is not much to change over the next 5 days. The only real difference this morning is that the weather models now show some of the rain that was in the 6-10 DAY yesterday… moves into portions of the Plains by day 5. We can see this in the official rainfall forecast from NWS for the next 5 days here. The main differences in the models is that the European has most of its rain on day 4 and day 5 over the eastern Dakotas and most of MN … except for the southeast corner. Rainfall amounts range from 1-3″/ 25-75mm and the coverage is 70%. The GFS model is similar but it has more rain at day 4 and day 5 over central NEB and western KS.
6-10 DAY = The model agreement here is very strong. There are some differences as to which areas see the heaviest rains but in general all the models are showing a wide band of significant rain from 1-4″/ 25-100mm stretching from central and southwest MN into the eastern half of SD, all of central and eastern NEB, southern KS, the western half of OK and the entire TX panhandle into southwest TX. The main difference between the models in this timeframe is that the early morning GFS has the heaviest rains of 5-7″/ 125-175mm concentrated over the Texas panhandle. The European simply does not have this concentration of heavy rain over that area.
That being said the Euro and GFS ensemble mean both show rains up to 3-4″ /75-100mm over western TX into the TX Panhandle … all of western OK and into southwest KS.
11-15 DAY = Weather models are in strong agreement that a major trough is going to move through the Midwest and the East Coast starting around day 10 – September 28 and 29. This trough will dominate the weather pattern through day 15/October 5. The question is will this be enough to bring about a frost? Early October is a climatological norm for when many areas in the upper Plains and the upper Midwest see their first sustained frost so if we were to see one in this timeframe it would not be a unusual.
The early Tuesday morning GFS model does show temperatures in the middle 30s over much of MN, northeast IA, much of WI and upper 30s over portions of MI, northeast OH and western PA. Similar temperatures can be found on the morning of October 1 -2 over much of the same areas. The European model is not quite as cold but this difference between the models in the 11 to 15 day is pretty typical.
One thing that does need to be pointed out is hurricane Maria. Most of the model data now shows that hurricane Maria is going to stay east of the East coast and be pulled northward because it will see a weakness in the atmosphere from the remains of hurricane Jose off the New England Coast. From there, Maria could get pulled northward into eastern Canada. If that were to happen by the end of the month this would energize the trough over the Midwest and bring in even colder air mass and increase the chances of a significant frost over a good portion of the Midwest. This of course is somewhat speculative but if this scenario were to unfold and if Maria were to be pulled northward into southeastern Canada… the frost chances would increase over the Midwest on the morning of October 1, 2 and 3.