Some of the remains of Nate made it into Indiana late yesterday, a little sooner than we were concerned about when we last updated you late last week. But, that means everything is gone this morning, and we should be looking at a couple of days of nice weather here. However, we do have some changes in the forecast this morning and will be looking at 2 systems in the coming 10 days. Today looks nice with sunshine all day, tomorrow will see sun giving way to clouds.
A system is coming together today in the central plains and will kick eastward. This will bring good rains across the western and central Corn Belt, and eventually they will get here. Rains will be most frequent through Wednesday, but we will likely see some scattered action moving into far western and southwestern IN later tomorrow afternoon and overnight tomorrow night. Rain totals from tomorrow late afternoon through Wednesday will be .25”-1.25” over 80% of the state. Thunderstorms will be key to getting into the upper end of the range, and the best place for those will be northern Indiana, particularly NW parts of the state. This will provide another harvest interruption. The map above is a snapshot of the system as it starts to move into the state.
Following that system, we are dry Thursday through Saturday with sunshine, normal to above normal temperatures and some good breezes developing. In fact, we think that we see some pretty strong southwest winds for Friday and Saturday, providing some good drying. Whether it will be enough, though, is still up in the air.
Our second system moves in for Sunday, bringing .25”-.75” over about 80% of the state. This front is a slow sagging type front coming from NW to SE across the state, but looks much more impressive off to the northwest over northern IL and WI. So, we look for decreasing rain totals as it moves over the state from Sunday morning to Sunday evening, from NW to SE. The best rains will be up north, lower end of the range rains down south.
Behind that system, we look to be dry for all of next week. Sunshine will combine with near normal temps over the state, and we should see evaporation rates at a near maximum. This will promote good drying. While temps are near normal, keep in mind that normals for the month are falling every day, as we see significant drops in normal temps from Oct 1-Oct 31. Still, though, this is not a bad forecast at all.
In the extended period, we are most interested in a front for the 21st over the state, as it looks to bring .25”-1” rain totals and another 80% coverage set up. This front has been consistently on our projections for nearly a week now, so we have good confidence this morning that we will be seeing another good threat of rain in and around this time frame. Behind that front we cool off farther, and we think there is good likelihood of frost after the 21st/22nd period.
The Official "weatherstud" Forecast Center 