TUESDAY AM RADAR – There are numerous showers and thunderstorms across north central South Dakota, central and southern Minnesota with about 30 to 40% coverage. And there is a second cluster of storms over far southeastern Nebraska and northeastern Kansas. All other areas are rain free. FAST EAST LOADING RADAR
MONDAY MAX TEMPS – mid 80s over OH, IND, ILL, KY, eastern IA, south WI, eastern MN, ND, eastern MT… Low 90s over AL, MS, LA, ARK, MO, TN, west IA, western MN… 95-100 over all of SD, eastern WY, eastern COL, all of NEB, KS, OK, TX … 100+ in western SD / nw NEB.
24 HR RAINFALL ENDING 0700 18 JULY – The 2 areas of showers and thunderstorms mentioned above drops some moderate rain in their corresponding areas. Over southeastern ND, eastern SD, central MN rainfall amounts of 0.25-1.5″/ 6-38mm with 50% coverage… and over se NEB into far ne KS 0.25-1.0″/ 6-25mm fell.
SUMMARY – Most of the overnight weather models have shifted the rain with the associated cold front on July 20-21-22 further to the north. The European and early morning GFS models as well as the GFS ensemble and the European ensemble keep 90% of Iowa dry for the next 7 days. In fact the European model has central Illinois and Iowa as well as eastern Nebraska completely dry over the next 10 days. I am not willing to forecast that at this point in time …but that is a possibility …although I think it is unlikely.
This is reflected in the NEW 5 DAY RAINFALL forecast from NWS (here) and 7 DAY rainfall forecast (HERE)
Only the early morning Canadian and experimental GFS parallel model show moderate rain into central and northern Iowa that moves in this weekend with amounts of 1-2″/ 25-50mm covering 50% of northern Iowa.
Until the rain arrives — whenever it does — the temperatures over much of the WCB will be extremely hot and the model data has not backed off of that at all. For Des Moines, Iowa the following temperatures are from the GFS model for Max readings for today Tuesday through next Sunday – 93, 95, 98, 98, 97, 91. The European model is similar except it has two days Thursday and Friday of this week with max temperatures above 100° at Des Moines. Similar temperatures can be found across all of northern Missouri and central and southern Illinois.
Longer term, my concern is that once the pattern breaks and we get a new deep trough established over the eastern third of the country, the pattern will go back to what we saw in MAY or JUNE . That is to say, above normal rainfall over the ECB with below normal temperatures for early and mid August. Over the WCB temperatures will be closer to normal but the pattern will be a dry one and that will also be the case over the Plains. Meanwhile the heat dome will still be out there hanging back over Nevada and Utah and western Colorado. It is far too early to know with any certainty whether or not the heat dome is going to make another run for the central Plains / WCB in August. If that happens it will not be in the first week of August, but the potential for a return to the dry pattern we saw in MAY / JUNE over the WCB/ Plains also has me a little concerned with respect to the soybeans over these areas during the month of August.
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