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Sunday Afternoon US Grain Weather Update
PM RADAR – CLICK HERE TO SEE FAST LOADING RADAR
The national radar 4:00 PM CDT shows almost no significant activity over any portion of the central or upper plains and the WCB regions. There are numerous small scattered showers and thunderstorms over central and southwestern Texas with about 40% coverage and over far eastern Texas into Louisiana with about 50% coverage. Additional moderate rain / storms are over central and east central Oklahoma, into west central Arkansas also with about 30 to 40% coverage. There are some storms in and around the Chicago metro area and some scattered activity over 30 to 40% of Indiana, Ohio and eastern Michigan.
SATURDAY MAX TEMPS
85-90 over eastern MT, ND, MN, eastern IA, WI, northeast ILL, most of IND, OH… Lower 90s over southwest IND, central and southern ILL, eastern SD, eastern NEB, western IA, eastern WY/ COL… 95-100 over KY, TN, GA, AL, MS, LA, ARK, MO, western SD, western NEB, KS, OK, TX… 100+ most of OK into sw TX, central KS.
RAINFALL LAST 48 HRS — 0700 CDT 21 JULY to 0700 CDT 23 JULY
Despite numerous claims by various private weather forecast services that insisted that most of the model data would be wrong …and that there would be significant rain over western and central Iowa this weekend… the data clearly shows that did NOT happen. This image shows the total rainfall from Friday morning to Sunday morning 0700 CDT. As you can see all of central …south central …all of western Iowa as well as most of eastern Nebraska and northern Missouri did not see significant rain over the weekend. As forecasted there was significant rain over northeastern 25% of Iowa with some areas getting as much as 7″/ 175mm of rain and this heavy rain extended into the northeast 25% of Illinois and Northwest Indiana …with a second area over southwest Indiana near the Kentucky State line.
1-5 DAY – temps are not as hot as what was previously forecast over central and southern Iowa … central and southern Illinois … portions of Missouri and the eastern half of South Dakota and Nebraska. Des Moines only reached 89 today as did Omaha and St Louis. If you recall from last Thursday and Friday it appeared that the cold front ending the heat wave over the WCB would arrive on Sunday night into early Monday morning. But as you can see from the temperature readings this afternoon over the WCB the cold front has clearly come in 6 to 12 hours fast. As a result the threat of 95 to 100° temperatures over Iowa, northern Missouri and downstate Illinois is pretty much over with for the time being.
The reason why these temperatures are cooler is because the cold front has come in about 6 to 12 hours faster than forecasted last Friday. That being said you should also know that the heat will continue over the next 7 days over the plains states with Max temperatures between 95 and 105°over the southern portions of North Dakota …most of South Dakota …Nebraska …Kansas …Oklahoma and northern Texas. The week starts off dry with much cooler temperatures because of a large area of HIGH pressure coming down across south central Canada into Minnesota and the Great Lakes. Once this HIGH moves off the East Coast on Wednesday …surface winds over the Midwest will turn southerly and temperatures will begin to warm and humidity will noticeably increase.
However a second cold front coming down from Canada will develop significant rain and thunderstorms over southern Minnesota …northern Wisconsin …and northeastern Nebraska by Wednesday evening. This cold front will bring moderate rain to much of Iowa as well as the rest of eastern Nebraska … southern Wisconsin by Thursday morning. The front continues south and east bringing some moderate rain and storms into much of Kansas …the northern half Missouri …central and southern Illinois …Thursday night and Friday. Eventually the cold front will reach the East Coast by Friday night or early Saturday morning.
With regard to the rainfall amounts over the WCB Wednesday night into Thursday it appears to be a 0.5-1.5″/ 12-38mm type of rain event with the best rains centered over western half of Iowa …northeastern Nebraska …the eastern third of South Dakota …southern Minnesota and northern half of Wisconsin.
The GFS model develops a cluster of heavy rains and storms over central Missouri which drops up to 5″/ 125mm Thursday night into Friday morning. In fact the GFS model has significant rain over Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee and Kentucky as well as southern Illinois and southern Missouri on Friday afternoon into Saturday morning with widespread 1-3″/ 25-75mm rains and 75% coverage in these areas. The European model is significantly drier. It does have a band of 0.5- 1.5″/ 12-38mm rains over central Missouri and central Illinois into southern Indiana …eastern Kentucky but the band is VERY narrow and does not cover nearly the same amount of the southern Midwest Territory as the GFS model does.
Even more stunning is the fact of the GFS ensemble which almost always runs colder than the operational run … is in this case hotter!. Here is the GFS ensemble for Friday afternoon and it has temperatures in Des Moines Iowa of 103° and Omaha Nebraska 108°.
6-10 DAY – That cold front which moves through the Midwest on Wednesday and Thursday and reaches the East Coast on Friday …stalls over the Southeastern states for the weekend and into next week. As a result all the models show significant widespread rains over Georgia, much of Tennessee, much of Kentucky, the Carolinas into Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland and Delaware this coming weekend into early next week.
But once again the GFS model is significantly wetter than the European. But they both show the same general idea. This means that most of the Midwest in the 6 to 10 day looks quite dry but no significant rain from Ohio to the western Dakotas and western Nebraska. There is also a very low heat with temperatures either normal or below normal.
11-15 DAY – There is some uncertainty in the 11 to 15 day. Both models show a non threatening pattern with regard to heat temperatures. However the GFS model handles the the deep trough over the eastern US differently. It stalls a cold across the Midwest with a result of the GFS ensemble showing Moderate rains over much of the Midwest (0.5- 1.5″/ 12-38mm with 70% coverage or better) from western Iowa all the way to Ohio and Pennsylvania and from Interstate 80 south.
The European model does handle the eastern US trough in the jet stream differently and keeps its rains over the SE states into the Middle Atlantic region. It is hard to say at this point which solution is correct. The risk that the GFS model might be correct and bring moderate rain in much of the Midwest cannot be over looked.
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