May 2018 Observations and Discussion

[jaster220]

Those patches of snow want to really hang on.

 

The past two years there was a couple of patches of snow well into June. We shall see how that plays out this year

 

When I lived in NMI, it was pretty common that Boyne had patches of snow on the slopes well into May AFTER leaf-out even. The snow on slopes is so packed down and is comprised of multiple layers pressed down by machine grooming. It's no surprise really. Stuff's one shade shy of solid ice. Now, the 3 foot snow pile on Mackinaw Island in June of '14 - that was a once in a century deal right there! Rare happening that was! 

[Tom]

That looks pretty for NE peeps...LRC providing another score (19th-21st) period was on the radar...

 

[St Paul Storm]

Still 82F at 7:30. Storms out in the Dakotas spreading a few clouds in now but still such a beautiful night. Sipping beer on the deck. What an awesome stretch of weather. Boring as hell, but awesome.

[CentralNebWeather]

Beautiful night here in Central Nebraska. Our school year ended today so our summer vacation is here. Just been at a large barbecue outside with many teachers and the weather is perfect. Looks like storms tomorrow for much of the weekend. Also sipping on some beers and margaritas and eating pulled pork. Yes.

[OKwx2k4]

Beautiful night here in Central Nebraska. Our school year ended today so our summer vacation is here. Just been at a large barbecue outside with many teachers and the weather is perfect. Looks like storms tomorrow for much of the weekend. Also sipping on some beers and margaritas and eating pulled pork. Yes.

Congrats on summer vacay man! You had a beautiful evening to kick it off, for sure.

[Tom]

Beautiful night here in Central Nebraska. Our school year ended today so our summer vacation is here. Just been at a large barbecue outside with many teachers and the weather is perfect. Looks like storms tomorrow for much of the weekend. Also sipping on some beers and margaritas and eating pulled pork. Yes.

Enjoy your well deserved summer break!  Meantime, a complex of storms heading your way to kick off your summer vaca.

 

 

http://climate.cod.edu/data/nexrad/UEX/N0Q/UEX.N0Q.20180518.1106.gif

[Tom]

The weekend system targeting the central Plains is taking nearly the same exact track the storm system took back on Nov 11th/12 which produced a sweet looking defo band over IA/IL in LRC cycle #1.  The track is nearly identical and the forecast off of the 06z NAM is amazingly similar.  The track back in Nov was through KS/N MO into C IL...now look at the 06z NAM gif below.

 

BTW, that is a nice looking squall line going through SE NE/KC region Sat pm....

 

 

[Tom]

Latest HRRR showing an awesome plume of moisture right over the drought stricken region of KS and into NE later tonight.  This will drench parts of the Plains with a quick 1-2" in spots.

 

 

[Niko]

Another beautiful day w plentiful sunshine and temps a tad cooler as a weak CF passed on through. Highs today probably remaining in the upper 60s to near 70F. Lows tanite down to a nippy 40s.

[westMJim]

We are now past the half way mark for this May and I have to say this has been a very nice month indeed.  The mean temperature for this month is now at 61.7° and that is good for a departure of +5.7° At GRR the high for the month so far has been 83° the coldest low so far has only been 40° if that holds for the rest of the month it would be the first time since 1998 that May did not have a low in the 30’s Of course June 1998 did have a cold low of 38° on June 8^th that year.

[Tom]

In reference to my earlier post about the LRC, and comparing this weekend set up to the Nov 11th/12th system, check out the 12z NAM run today showing a long lived nocturnal MCS which "fits" nearly exactly where the defo band set up back then.  Truly amazing if it transpires as such which just shows another example of the LRC at work.

[Niko]

We are now past the half way mark for this May and I have to say this has been a very nice month indeed.  The mean temperature for this month is now at 61.7° and that is good for a departure of +5.7° At GRR the high for the month so far has been 83° the coldest low so far has only been 40° if that holds for the rest of the month it would be the first time since 1998 that May did not have a low in the 30’s Of course June 1998 did have a cold low of 38° on June 8^th that year.

My area hit 38.9F, lowest thus far this month.

[gabel23]

Beautiful night here in Central Nebraska. Our school year ended today so our summer vacation is here. Just been at a large barbecue outside with many teachers and the weather is perfect. Looks like storms tomorrow for much of the weekend. Also sipping on some beers and margaritas and eating pulled pork. Yes.

Drove through your town yesterday; was shocked by how dry everything is in that area. I took the family to Lamar, Colorado for our nieces graduation party. Crazy how dry it is in all parts of southern nebraska and western Kansas. Hoping for a good soaking for your area. Might be back later this summer to try out your golf course, Looks like a fun little track!

[CentralNebWeather]

Drove through your town yesterday; was shocked by how dry everything is in that area. I took the family to Lamar, Colorado for our nieces graduation party. Crazy how dry it is in all parts of southern nebraska and western Kansas. Hoping for a good soaking for your area. Might be back later this summer to try out your golf course, Looks like a fun little track!

Thank goodness we had a nice complex of storms come through early this morning. My rain gauge broke so I had to go by radar estimates which put us a little over 1 inch. There is actually some water standing in the fields this morning as I took a drive. Tonight 1-2 more inches is forecasted. Things already look greener. Hope you had safe travels.

[Minny_Weather]

Aaaaaaaand the line of heavy rain has transformed into nothing more than light rain before reaching here. Sigh. Tomorrow had better deliver or I'll need to go to a mental asylum.

[Minny_Weather]

I have a bad feeling about tomorrow. I'm RIGHT on the enhanced risk border and NAM shows main development to our South. However, I'm not sure how possible that is considering morning convection will be down in Northeast KS tomorrow. That would stabilize things down there I'd think.

[St Paul Storm]

83F and sunny. Wash, rinse, repeat. Little chances of precip over the next 7 days. Might need to water the backyard as it sits on a fairly steep hill. Doesn’t hold moisture well.

[BrianJK]

83F and sunny. Wash, rinse, repeat. Little chances of precip over the next 7 days. Might need to water the backyard as it sits on a fairly steep hill. Doesn’t hold moisture well.

Love it! Keep it going please. I was looking ahead cause I’m heading up north for MDW and it’s almost making me nervous seeing nothing but sunny and near 80 leading up to it because my mind automatically reverts to “it’s gotta end sometime”. But who knows, maybe it’ll wait til after the holiday weekend to regress back.

[CentralNebWeather]

Pouring rain here. Welcome indeed.

[Minny_Weather]

Street flooding concerns over NC KS as an intense band of rain is just sitting there. Good for them, they need this rain and the ground is dry enough to soak it up. Street flooding is a concern but people that have a problem with it deserve Darwin awards anyway.

 

That rain is coming here. In the process of writing this post, I just remembered to close the windows. I'd like to get my security deposit back when I move out of here so flooding the place probably isn't the best idea for that. 65.8°F.

[OKwx2k4]

Street flooding concerns over NC KS as an intense band of rain is just sitting there. Good for them, they need this rain and the ground is dry enough to soak it up. Street flooding is a concern but people that have a problem with it deserve Darwin awards anyway.

 

That rain is coming here. In the process of writing this post, I just remembered to close the windows. I'd like to get my security deposit back when I move out of here so flooding the place probably isn't the best idea for that. 65.8°F.

Street flooding is pretty much a given in flatlands. Glad to see you're finally getting your rain buddy.

[Minny_Weather]

Street flooding is pretty much a given in flatlands. Glad to see you're finally getting your rain buddy.

Woke up about 30 minutes ago to heavy rain and very loud thunder. Was only a thin line of heavy rain but D**n it was nice to see the dome around Lincoln get penetrated. This is my first time hearing really heavy rain here since October.

 

Now let's get the sun out so we can get severe weather this afternoon. Enhanced risk has been moved way South of here and can't say I disagree with that based on models. Hopefully those are all proven wrong as I don't think the cold front is past here.

[Tom]

As for MDW, I'm starting to see the GEFS trending towards a warm/wet Fri-Sun near the GL's, but a chilly Memorial Day as a rather strong CF swings through on Sunday.  I was anticipating this front to swing through while the tropical system will likely get picked up by this front and track along the EC somewhere.  Once we get past MDW, the pattern amplifies across North America leading us into the opening month of met Summer.  Will there be some unusual troughs this Summer season???  Great bon fire weather???  While the west coast and parts of the Plains bake, I think summer around here and portions of the Midwest will have an ideal weather pattern if you don't like the heat and humidity.

 

00z GEFS starting to make sense and illustrating the LRC quite well as we close out May and open June...watch the trend for cooler across the eastern 2/3's of the nation, while the desert SW and west coast bake.  Record heat in AZ is on my radar to close out May and open June.

 

[Minny_Weather]

Welp, our severe weather chances are officially shot. I can feel a breeze through my North facing windows which means the cold front has passed here. At least we got a nice soaking earlier so I can't be too upset.

[westMJim]

It looks like the water temperature of Lake Michigan might be colder that last year at this time

 

http://www.woodtv.com/weather/bill-s-blog/lake-michigan-3-deg-cooler-than-one-year-ago/1188072870

[Minny_Weather]

I swear the OAX radar goes down at the most inconvenient times.

[CentralNebWeather]

Picked up 2 inches of rain overnight here. That is on top of the nearly 1 inch we got yesterday morning. Water is now standing. What a difference in 2 days around here. Cloudy, windy, and cool with a temperature of 53 degrees. Hello early October.

[Bryan1117]

Picked up 2 inches of rain overnight here. That is on top of the nearly 1 inch we got yesterday morning. Water is now standing. What a difference in 2 days around here. Cloudy, windy, and cool with a temperature of 53 degrees. Hello early October.

Outside of a brief light shower this morning, we haven’t picked up much of any rain here in Omaha. With the severe threat now being pushed way south... I am pessimistic that we will see very little moisture again from another decent system. This weather pattern has been plain awful for us around here over the last 9-10 months.

[CentralNebWeather]

Local ABC twitter page says Holdrege officially had 2.25” though my gauge says right at 2”

[james1976]

Clouding up here. Line of storms to my south heading this way.

[snowstorm83]

My friend from Scottsbluff, NE says that his bedroom is flooded. They've gotten over 3" since last night. This is about as far west in NE as you can get and only averages 15" a year, so soakings like this are rare. 

[Hawkeye]

This month officially sucks.  This evening's rain went around us again and now the HRRR and NAM have nothing else falling through at least midday Sunday.  Models had been all over the place in the days leading up to this event.  There's just no organization.

 

I've been waiting til today to put grub control on the lawn because it needs to be watered in(at least a half inch).  We'll probably get no rain at all from this crap system and I'll be forced to water the entire lawn myself.

[Minny_Weather]

My friend from Scottsbluff, NE says that his bedroom is flooded. They've gotten over 3" since last night. This is about as far west in NE as you can get and only averages 15" a year, so soakings like this are rare. 

There was an official 9" reading near Gering, which is near Scottsbluff.

[OKwx2k4]

There was an official 9" reading near Gering, which is near Scottsbluff.

Wow! So over half their annual precipitation in a day. That's nuts.

[NEJeremy]

So much for the soaker in Omaha. I don’t know why we ever believe the models showing a lot of precipitation. since the LRC is always so accurate it would make sense that Omaha keeps getting missed because that’s what happened the last cycle too and the cycle before that etc

[Tom]

So much for the soaker in Omaha. I don’t know why we ever believe the models showing a lot of precipitation. since the LRC is always so accurate it would make sense that Omaha keeps getting missed because that’s what happened the last cycle too and the cycle before that etc

As a weather enthusiast, I'm sure it sucks badly, just like this year's severe wx season.  On the other hand, it's quite fascinating actually that even in a certain local, the same weather pattern is cycling.  Near misses with snow in the winter and now misses with precip in the Spring/Summer.  Meanwhile, those to the south who need it much more got a great soaking.  The Nebraska Soaker decided to rain everywhere but OMA...doh!

[Tom]

Back in Chi, it's a blustery, cold, cloudy and windy morning here with a temp of 46F.  Some spots near the lake are in the low 40's!  @IllinoisWx, you freezing your a** up??  LOL...Yup, gonna flip the furnace on again this month.  Sooo looking forward to the mid 80's mid and late week around here.

 

This map says it all for OMA folks...@CentralNeb scores much needed precip...I think we've seen him score more hits out of anyone in NE. Spotty heavy rains in KS which is normal;y the case in summer convective patterns.

 

 

 

[Tom]

Over the last week, the models were showing a "drier" pattern around here but that is not happening as the hits keep coming.  Just had a thundery downpour roll over head and now the higher rez models are showing heavy precip overnight once again.  Nice to see parts of the S MW getting in on the action.  I just buffed my car on Friday and was hoping the rains wouldn't come but that ain't happening.  

 

 

 

[NEJeremy]

It’s too bad the LRC decided not to work for Omaha from back in the beginning of March when we did have over 3” of rain in about 10 days. The 30 day cycles didn’t deliver since and neither did the longer one. Grass is still green at least even though we’ve been above average for temps too, but at least haven’t hit 90 yet

 

As a weather enthusiast, I'm sure it sucks badly, just like this year's severe wx season. On the other hand, it's quite fascinating actually that even in a certain local, the same weather pattern is cycling. Near misses with snow in the winter and now misses with precip in the Spring/Summer. Meanwhile, those to the south who need it much more got a great soaking. The Nebraska Soaker decided to rain everywhere but OMA...doh!

[Hawkeye]

Well, I finally lucked out a bit early this morning.  There were some scattered good cells popping over east-central Iowa, and one of them dropped almost a half inch here, with a tiny bit of pea-size hail.  This was the first genuine heavy downpour here in quite a while.