So You’re Saying There’s A Chance

Remember that line from Dumb And Dumber? Well mother Nature is going to give us an opportunity to pick up some VERY needed rainfall later tomorrow evening and tomorrow night as a cold front moves into the region. The moisture will be increasing at the surface, and while it’s not the greatest set-up for us, the potential is certainly there and beggers can’t be choosey.

First though let’s talk about how dry it has been. Mid May through Mid June is typically our wettest time of the year…after that the summer doldrums settle in…and the rain, while potentially heavy, gets to be sometimes more scattered. Usually during the summer months we’ll rely on overnight convective systems to rumble down towards our region. From them you can get decent rainfall amounts, but a lot of that depends whether or not they’re decaying or thriving when they get to our area.

Here is a look at the last 30 days of precipitation…in relation to average.

Notice how that map, through the 7th, shows many areas well under 25% of their average. That’s not good during this time of the year.

The front in question will be moving in later tomorrow night. Along and ahead of the front there will be a line of storms with locally heavy rainfall. The problem with this is that the storms will generate and be strongest well to the NW of here…and move NE towards NE and IA while the front moves slowly east. Odds favor the line of rain to to weaken as it moves this way, while still having some embedded heavier patches. This should yield rainfall tallies in excess of 1″ for some, and unfortunately less than 1/10″ for others. Considering the line hasn’t even formed yet, it’s impossible to say who will get what.

After that there is not much of a hope for anything else that significant for about another week or so.

Have a great weekend and keep your fingers crossed for the potential tomorrow night.

Joe