Hawkeye

I finished September with 9.38" of rain.

It's nice to see people excited. I, on the other hand, find it difficult to get excited about long-range winter outlooks. If we actually do get a bunch of snow and cold, I'll be excited. Winter can always just as easily be a dud.

Unfortunately, the Des Moines radar will be down for an upgrade all next week... lousy timing.

Not even close to any frost here this morning. The temp only fell to 38 or 39.

Yeah, the last few euro runs have really ramped up the rainfall as well. The ensemble avg is up to 5 inches here through two weeks. The op has a band of 6 inches over northern Iowa through ten days.

The temp is only in the mid to upper 40s under the light rain band in Iowa this afternoon. Brrrrr! It has mostly been sprinkles here with a temp near 50. DVN is forecasting 36 here tonight, with only patchy frost. I shouldn't have to worry about my garden. I may throw a sheet over a couple of the most exposed/tender plants.

Models now agree the Rosa remnants will pass well north of Iowa midweek. However, they also agree there will be another big system just behind it that tracks farther south.

Apparently, the Euro is about to go to four runs per day.

Definitely warm. The euro now has 70s to low 80s for four days. However, south of hw20 in Iowa, it's not wet. The euro has become drier every run for me, now showing only an inch over the next ten days.

I forgot to mention that I picked up 0.55" of rain from the severe line early this afternoon. The windiest, but thinnest part of the line moved through my part of CR. My September rain total is now 9.01".

I thought I already posted about what I got from this line, but apparently I did not. For the first few minutes, it was disappointingly tame. I thought it was going to be another wind dud. However, it then hit in a hurry. I received a 50 mph gust, then 60 mph, then 70 mph. I could hear the wind coming and the huge tree on the next block began to disappear in the rain/wind blur. When the 70 mph gust hit, I could hear some small tree debris hit the house. There are bits of tree strewn across the lawn. A neighbor had a large limb blown down from one of his trees. My garden took a beating, with at least one large hummer plant partiallly broken and another snapped right off near the base.

Nasty bowing red line moving into CR.

Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Quad Cities IA IL 1024 AM CDT Tue Sep 25 2018 UPDATE... Issued at 1005 AM CDT Tue Sep 25 2018 Severe Potential: Looks as though elevated convection will begin to overtake the warm sector and become rooted in the BL. This should occur shortly before noon and likely just west of the CWA. Overall convection speed will slow down and begin to move into our area. This will give time for CAPE to build this afternoon across the CWA. Synoptic models show that shear doesn't support tornadogenesis, due to SW sfc winds. It appears that a sfc wave is forming across SW IA. This wave will back winds, much like the HRRR shows. I believe that we will have a tornado threat from any mesovortex that develops. I also believe that shear will be greater than what synoptic models forecast due to this low. As far as severe parameters go, tend to favor CAM solutions related to shear. Severe threat for winds to 70 mph, hail and tornadoes remains for the area.

The operational runs of the models are still fluctuating quite a bit into early October. The euro had been showing 60s and very wet, but the latest run went much less wet and 80 degrees. The last two op GFS runs, a week out, went from showing a front in Tennessee with a high of 49, to a front in northern Minnesota with highs in the mid 80s. The ensembles have shown a huge spread beyond day five.

Yeah, it's a little chilly out there this evening.

As the models predicted, the line of storms was in full crap-out mode as they moved through eastern Iowa last night. I received a couple very brief downpours, followed by some light rain. My total was 0.17". My September total is up to 8.46".

Water in the basement sucks. Fortunately, it takes a LOT of rain to make that happen here. The 5 inches over several days a couple weeks ago and the 3.5 inches the last couple days wasn't nearly enough to do it. It would probably take another 5 quick inches.

Today is the last day of summer weather. I suppose I'm ready for fall.

I don't think much will be able to get down here. The last two nights/mornings the storms were on a solid ese trajectory, but with the low moving in from the west tonight there is a stronger sw to ne flow that will try to keep them from sagging south. What CR would need is for the outflow boundaries to shoot pretty far south and then get some bubbly action north of the boundary. That is currently occurring along hw20, but it'll be tougher down here. James is getting hit pretty good.

The intense storms firing on the nose of the LLJ this evening appear to be setting up farther south than what models were suggesting. Even the northern tier of Iowa counties are too far north for the first round. James could be right on the line with very heavy rain just north and very little just south.

Well, that was certainly a bonus. A little enhanced curl in the line passed over my side of town and dropped another 0.90" in 25 minutes. My total today is 1.51". My 36 hour total is 3.41". Wow! I was not expecting so much. I've actually been lucky with each of the several lines/cells that have moved through since yesterday morning. Boy, we went from incredibly wet, to two weeks of bone dry, and then back to incredibly wet with part of my yard flooding.

Yeah, that second line was doing nothing south of HW20 in central Iowa, but built south and blew up quickly over the last hour. There is a bit of purple on radar just sw of CR, near Fairfax, so there's probably some hail there.

I just picked up a solid 0.61" from the morning line. That should be it for us until some decaying stuff reaches the area Thursday night.

I'm now up to 1.89" for the day.

The main line just moved through with plenty of heavy rain and gusty wind. Almost all of our heavy rain this year has come with a near calm wind, so this was a change. My rain total is up to 1.52".