Sunshine and blue sky in over the state today as high pressure is finally here. This should keep us mostly dry through the weekend. However, in far northern Indiana, we may need to keep an eye out for a few clouds and perhaps the odd shower or two, overnight tonight into tomorrow morning. The best chance of rains will be farther north in Michigan. Temps climb over the next few days and will be nearly normal today and tomorrow before drifting a bit above normal for the weekend.
Our next system looks to arrive faster and depart sooner. Overall, we are leaving rain totals along with this event but will see rain already Monday, especially over the northern half of the state. Then we see that rain spread south and be statewide Monday evening through Tuesday. Rain totals stay at .25”-1” this morning, but we are upping coverage to nearly 80% of the state over the two-day period combined. Rain is done by midnight Tuesday night. Thunderstorms are still possible and will be needed to get into the upper end of the range. We may even be able to exceed 1 inch in a few spots, depending on how strong any storms build.
We are dry Wednesday, but a bit cooler behind the front. Then the pattern gets more interesting to finish the 10-day window. For Thursday, we still are looking for mostly dry weather, however, we are seeing a potential for moisture to reactivate along the old front to the south and pull another wave of precipitation northeast along the front. We think this action will want to stay mostly south of the Ohio river, but some models are starting to suggest a more northward track. We are leaving our dry forecast alone this morning but will keep a keen eye on this through the day today and tomorrow morning. There may be an update forthcoming. Then dry weather is in control for Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
For the extended period, we do not see any significant frontal action to start. There can be some scattered showers developing around the 14th, but coverage looks less impressive this morning, and totals may end up only around a quarter of an inch or less. Better showers develop around the 17th, with .2”-.5” rain totals and 60% coverage.
Models backed off the heat in the corn belt dramatically yesterday. We still look for a large part of next week to be above normal, as we have forecasted up to this point, but we continue to say it is not the extreme heat that has been touted by other weather organizations. In fact, we had to chuckle a little bit when they had to eat crow or explain themselves yesterday. We think 88-92 is a good range for the hottest temps…warm, even feeling a bit hot after the cool pattern we have had recently…but not over the top. It is August, after all.
