SWEET SWEET WEATHER, DOING ITS ACT

The last weekend in October is off to a sensational start. Temperatures in most areas were up around 60 Friday afternoon with abundant sunshine and light winds. That is a winning hand and it looks like we have several more to play before any meaningful changes come our way.

Saturday has turned into a huge day for me as I was asked to be the MC of the Galena Halloween Parade. If you haven't experienced this event, I would put it on your bucket list. 25,000 to 30,000 people line the main street of Galena for what is considered the 2nd best Halloween parade in the entire United States. The energy is fabulous and it's such a hoot that Carolyn and I have made it an annual event for nearly 20 years. It is a tremendous honor to be chosen master of ceremonies. Here's a few photographs from previous years. Again I highly recommend this family event which gets underway at 6:30. Get there early!

Of course if you are going to MC and event as a meteorologist, you better bring your A game when it comes to the weather. I will be doing just that with a beautiful late October day on tap including sunshine and highs in the low 60s. Nothing scary about that!

Sunday a weather system in the southern stream lifts into the Ohio Valley. It will bring some mid-level clouds, especially to my counties southeast of the Quad Cities. It's rain should bypass the area but there's a small chance a sprinkle or brief shower could catch far SE Iowa and WC Illinois. Overall, temperatures will remain in the range of 60 to 65, not a bad deal for October 30th. You can see the system spinning over Texas Friday night.

Halloween itself should see little change. Look for highs Monday in the low 60s under partly sunny skies. That's a potion I'm willing to swallow.

THE 70S ARE BACK

Next Tuesday the pattern begins to amplify as a trough digs into the west. The resulting SW flow will send us back to the 70s, at the very least upper 60s. Here's the EURO meteogram in the Quad Cities for the next 10 days.

Notice what happens November 7th. The high has gone from 70 to 39 degrees on the EURO. Yesterday the GFS and EURO had no hint of this crash showing temperature departures such as this for the period November 4th through the 11th.

If you read my previous post I was very leery of that prognosis with the MJO going into phase 7 and the EPO turning negative implying much colder temperatures. My thoughts were that the deterministic models had not caught the trend that teleconnections were signaling. Today, the EURO has come in quite a bit different showing a digging 500mb trough that is clearing the way for the colder air. That's a radical change but one I believed was coming.

Now look at the temperature departures it shows for November 7th. That's a far cry from what I showed you above.

The surface depiction November 7th even has snow breaking out from SW Iowa into Nebraska with very chilly air right behind it.

The next thing for me is to see if the colder trend continues in coming model runs of the EURO. I assume it will but sometimes models will bounce around a bit when changes like this are first ingested. So far, the GFS is still oblivious to the potential downturn.

Whatever happens, we still have a solid week of mild weather ahead of us. I intend to enjoy it and the Galena Halloween parade. If you're going, be sure to stop by and say hey. Roll weather...TS