Sometime about 3-4 months from now, when it's snowing like crazy, somebody somewhere out there will think back to a beautiful stretch of weather from late September through early October...this would be that stretch. It started n Monday, and with the exception of a few periods of clouds, maybe a light shower/sprinkle over the next 10-15 days, it's going to be wonderful out there.

Sadly, for those who are trying to grow grass, it's the worst combination of dry air, soon to be warming temperatures and a lack of decent rainfall. That means a LOT of hose dragging and a bigger water bill is heading our way...it's going to be awfully tough to keep up but I'll try. You can definitely tell how much more the grass likes the rain as opposed to the watering...

The pattern overall will stay non-productive for us as a series of strong upper level storms carves off a big trof across the eastern part of the country. As I talked about last weekend, this will place us in a general NW flow, at times even a North flow, allowing weak cold fronts to pass through every so often. Temperatures will moderate into the 80-85 range (like yesterday) ahead of a frontal passage and then cool down into the 70s behind the front. Overnight lows till further notice will mainly be in the 40s and 50s. The humidity levels will be typically low for this time of the year.

Sadly as well...while the nights will be nice and pleasant, which is good for the leaf changing that has slowly started, the combination of the summer stress and dry spells and now a crucial dry spell going into the leaf changing season means our fall colors may not live up to the potential that is there. We've had some rough fall foliage years over the last several years and I think this year may fall into that category again.

The tropics are still going, Ophelia is out there, right now a tropical storm in the Atlantic Ocean.with winds of 45 MPH and is forecasted to limp along for the next 3-5 days with winds no stronger than 50 MPH...it will be affecting the islands though...here is the forecasted movement...

At this point rainfall/flooding looks to be the biggest threat from this storm....


It's going to be awfully tough to come up with weather blogs for the next couple of weeks, with absolutely nothing going on of real significance for us...however there are some topics that I want to cover, one of which is the assessment report that was issued by the NWS yesterday concerning the Joplin tornado...that will be the subject of tomorrow's blog, including the potential of how it could effect our area in a HUGE way coming up next spring...

Joe