MONDAY MIDDAY RADAR The early Monday afternoon radar shows showers and thunderstorms over much of southern Minnesota and scattered showers over 30% of north central Iowa, eastern Nebraska and far northwest portions of North Dakota.
1-5 DAY = The first image shows the total rainfall expected all the next 60 hours ending as of 7PM CDT Wednesday 5/17. The short range models with the high resolution shows significant rains of amounts between 3-6″ /75-150mm over southeastern third of MN … the northwest half of WI with 70% coverage. Additional lighter rains of 0.75 -2.5″ continue over 60% of western and central Iowa, central and eastern Nebraska, the far southeast corner South Dakota. Additional light showers fall the next 60 hours across central and eastern portions of North Dakota.
The rainfall over the next 5 days which looks fairly impressive with most of the rains falling after Tuesday evening or early Wednesday morning. This image shows excellent model agreement in the next 5 days between the operational or regular GFS on the right and the Canadian on the left. Notice that for the most part … a good portion of the ECB remains fairly dry all the next 5 days as well as the lower Delta. But the models are in excellent agreement about significant rains of 2-4″/ 50-100mm across many portions of northeastern Texas … eastern and central Oklahoma … portions of Missouri … Iowa … southern Minnesota and northwest Wisconsin.
6-10 DAY = With the strong trough developing, the jet stream driving the cold front south … most of the rains shift southward in the 6-10 DAY. The model agreement between the midday GFS and Canadian is fairly good as they all show the same sort of thing with the rains shifting to the south. This leaves large gaps in the rainfall coverage over the central and upper Plains and portions of the Midwest but there is a secondary area of rain which shows up on both models affecting much of northern Illinois … and or Iowa … much of Minnesota … and Wisconsin. Rainfall amounts here range from 0.75- 2.0″/20-50mm.
Interestingly the ensembles from both the GFS and the Canadian are actually wetter than the operational run. This is somewhat unusual. What this means is that the rains may linger over much more of the Midwest with significant amounts for a longer period of time than what the operational regular GFS and Canadian models are depicting. In other words, instead of seeing all these large gaps over the central Plains and the Midwest in the 6-10 DAY … the ensembles indicate that the rains will stay fairly active across most of the Midwest.
11-15 DAY = the model agreement is very good in the 11 to 15 day as all the models show the rains shifting to the south. The GFS and the Canadian also 0.5-1.5″ /12-38mm over much of Kansas … Oklahoma … Arkansas … Kentucky … Tennessee into Virginia … West Virginia … and Pennsylvania. There are lighter amounts to fall over much of the Midwest but the rainfall amounts here are not significant and generally under 0.5.