WLFI Videographer Blake Naftel
Can you believe we were in the 80s on Sunday or only about 48 hours ago? I had a sunburn on Saturday and it was quite odd still feeling the after-effects of this in cloudy, 50 degree weather today. You can see Blake and I prepared folks for this weather last night on the evening news. Blake sported the autumn wear that worked the best yesterday after weeks of shorts weather. I actually did feel like I was going clamming in New England when I put that outfit on for the newscast. It was actually a lot of fun and just great to talk about real autumn weather. It is for real because today we are having our chilliest day since April 13th across much of the area. It looks like autumn is finally here to stay. We actually had below average temperatures for only the 5th time this season. This chart tells the story below.
Summer is not the only thing that has said goodbye. Our drought-like conditions have been almost completely wiped out thanks to many areas receiving over a months worth of rain over the past 7 days. It is hard to believe we had red flag warning just a couple weeks ago for a high fire danger in parts of our viewing area. Now nature has doused this dry pattern and snuffed out any more talk of drought. Our weather atchers have gotten quite a good workout going back and forth from their respective rain gauges as you see below.
October is one of our driest months of the year on average, but not this year! I do think this has big ramnifications on our winter forecast. I am looking for a stormy winter with plenty of ups and downs. What happens in October, nature tends to remember come December and the rest of the winter. I see us having not only plenty of rain this winter, but snow, and unfortunately a good chance of a big ice storm. We will be right on that dividing line between very warm air to our south and polar air to our north. Last year I did call for a blizzard that was based on weather trends that we have not seen in Indiana since the late 1970s. The El Nino had a historic plunge. This winter we have some very interesting analogs that match up well with ice storms. If this past week had been all snow we would have had over two feet and I would rather have that any day instead of an ice storm. I have already told my wife I want to purchase a generator because I know what happened in 1991 when some folks were without power for 3 to 4 weeks. She thinks I am crazy, but I really feel I am on to something. I certainly hope we do not see a repeat of 1991, but this week's rain may be a warning sign. It is great we have caught up on rainfall, but it is also telling us a volatile winter is coming our way and we need to be on guard for everything from thunderstorms, flooding, and snow to possibly our biggest ice storm in more than a decade. I hope I am dead wrong!
Tomorrow here on the blog we will talk about when our first wintry precipitation may fall and what exactly a fire tornado really is. You have a great day and as always thanks for reading. If you see my wife, remember to remind her about the generator. :)
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