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WELCOME THE RAIN
If you were lucky enough to get some it certainly wasn’t enough. The cool air led to a build up of clouds and a few afternoon showers Thursday. Brief thunderstorms were also noted during the peak heating of the day. The rain a product of the high sun angle versus the chilly (late October-level) air. Driven by the heating of the day, these showers and a few thunderstorms will diminish quickly at/around sunset. Locations that received the rain were not nearly enough to eliminate the extremely dry conditions.
That was a chilly open to October with early morning lows around 40-degrees. Recovering to a high of 67-degrees in Indianapolis makes this the coolest start to an October in four years. But what a difference a year makes! one year ago, October 2019 open with back to back days reaching 92-degrees – the ALL-TIME highest temperature ever for the month of Octobers.
October can turn on a dime and often it does! Losing over one hour of daylight again this month, we can turn quickly to winter! Do you remember the mid-October snowstorm in 1989!!! over a three day span, 9.3″ of snow fell, the most ever recorded in the month for Indianapolis. October’s coldest came on the 26th and 28th at 20-degrees most recently in 1981.
MODERATE DROUGHT DECLARED
The lack of rain is ongoing and per the U.S. Drought Center, areas deemed as “moderate drought” have expanded to nearly 30% of the state and that includes the city of Indianapolis. The dry spell is a historic one and started in mid-August. In the 44 day stretch, portions of central, western-central and south-central Indiana are approaching 5″ below normal precipitation. This is the DRIEST stretch ever for the calendar dates ( August 19th through October 1st) and September 2020 entered the record books as the driest on record.
The rainfall woes are likely to continue. There is still rain in the forecast for the upcoming weekend as a new, fast moving, “clipper low” rides the jet stream and arrives Sunday. While showers are likely and may reach 50% peak coverage – the trends are what we feared, going drier with light amounts of rain expected. This system will do little to alleviate the dry conditions.
The extended outlook isn’t much better – as the 30 day October outlook calls for a higher probability of below normal rainfall for much of the central U.S. including Indiana. Warmer weather a better likelihood too for much of the western U.S.
As always we are hawking over the latest data and should better rain chances arise we will share them with you. Until further notice, that lawn will likely remain rather thirsty.
Suggest a Correction
October 02, 2020 at 05:36AM
https://fox59.com/weather/dry-pattern-spills-into-october-coolest-open-to-october-in-four-years/
Dry pattern spills into October, coolest open to October in four years - Fox 59
https://news.google.com/search?q=dry&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en
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