JELLY WITH YOUR TOAST-Y TEMPS...

Temperatures were right back in the 80s Tuesday under beautiful blue skies. Just another day in paradise! Here's September's readings as whole in the Quad Cities. What I see is a whole lot of above normal temperatures.

Wednesday will be even warmer with highs reaching the mid to upper 80s. A couple 90s are possible where soil moisture is lowest due to the ongoing drought in my central counties. Below I've shown the frequency of attaining a high of 90 or above on September 29th in both Cedar Rapids and the Quad Cities. Only about 2 to 3 percent of days going back to 1893 ever reach that level.

Our dry September continues, especially north of I-80 where at the Davenport NWS office where measurable rain has fallen only 3 times the entire month!

These rainfall deficits only cover the period August 1st to September 28th. Some 6" deficits around Clinton.

This picture of "fried grass" was sent to me by Bob Dittmer who lives near Elizabeth in Jo Daviess Co., Illinois

Back in the deep freeze of February Bob showed me the other extreme of living in the Midwest when that same yard was covered in a healthy mantle of snow. It's always something. Thanks Bob!

That leads me to the topic of precipitation towards the weekend. Yesterday I pointed out the difference in timing with the GFS bringing in the rain about two days sooner than the EURO. Today, the same conflict exists as once again they agree to disagree.

The GFS brings the rain in to my western counties Thursday evening and then slowly advances it east across the Mississippi Friday late Friday afternoon and night. By midnight Friday night it shows this for rain totals.

The EURO with its slower solution keeps all but my far western counties dry through the day Friday before slowly advancing showers to about the Mississippi at Midnight Friday. Compare its rainfall totals to the GFS above for the same period.

With this type of system I prefer a slower solution as the existing ridge is likely going to be tough to buck and there's dry air to overcome. I also think it could take nearly 24 hours for the rain to advance from my western counties to those in the east.

Eventually, both models eject the system and show enough forcing Saturday through Sunday morning to squeeze out some respectable and well deserved rains. However, I don't want to oversell the potential because we've had some good set-ups this summer that never materialized...an issue that's known to happen when soil conditions are as dry as they are in parts of my region. That said, models are sending strong signals that at least moderate rains are in the offing. Here's the totals for both the GFS, EURO, and WPC (Weather Prediction Center). Note WPC is lower on amounts which I think is the way to go until models converge on a solution and we get a couple days closer to the event. I'll believe those heavier amounts when I see them. In other words I'm still a bit skeptical.

The GFS

The EURO

The Weather Prediction Center blend.

With the slower arrival of precipitation that I'm anticipating it seems as though chances of seeing 3 more days in the 80s are good. The EURO ensemble meteogram depicts this for temperatures through next Monday. With the arrival of clouds and precipitation temperatures begin to decline Saturday and will be substantially cooler by next week.

It still appears that blocking will develop next week at higher latitudes forcing the storm track underneath and closer to our area than its been in some time. In theory that should increase rain prospects over the next 2 weeks. Both the EURO and GFS show positive precipitation departures that look like this. Fingers crossed.

The EURO

The GFS

More on the western Pacific tropics and the impacts of a typhoon as mentioned in my previous post.

Models continue to track the super typhoon that's passing east of Japan into the north Pacific with time. There should be a downstream reaction and that does appear to be influencing the overall pattern. The general rule of thumb is that as the energy passes Japan and gets entrenched in the westerlies, in 6-10 days time it causes a downstream trough over the eastern U.S. The end result is a period of cooler than normal temperatures from the Midwest east. The GFS shows the developing trough in 7-8 days, the EURO not so much. There was nothing close to this on the charts 24 hours ago so this remains a work in progress. You can also see the blocking over much of Canada.

The resulting temperature departures a week from tomorrow if the GFS prevails.

Well, that will do it for now. Put some jelly on your toast-y temperatures and enjoy them. We are getting to that time of year where we may not see anything this warm again for 6 or 7 months. Ugh! Roll weather...TS