Sultry & Soggy to Splendid & Sunsational Today

We made out okay here in Lafayette last night. But nature did make things interesting for us as it always does. We had some thunderstorm tops just over 40,000 feet and a brief severe thunderstorm warning for southern Fountain County. The good news is that I received no storm reports. Teri Trent shows us those impressive towering cumulus clouds that built into thunderheads. The high temperature reached 88 degrees but we had a heat index of 94 which made it a bit stifling. It was the kind of weather that made your shirt stick to your back. This fueled our storms as they had plenty of moisture to work with.

You can see the bumpy clouds showing those high cloud tops on our satellite and radar composite. The big thing that saved us from seeing the worst of the storm was that the main cold front was still well back in Wisconsin during the late afternoon and also a pre-frontal wave came through the area in the afternoon with a few storms north and east of us. As it moved south and east during the eveing it was the main focus for thunderstorms. Some storms turned violent in Indiana with almost a dozen wind damage reports including wind gusts to 64 mph in Dale and 60 mph wind gusts in Marion and Morgan Counties with reports of trees and powerlines down. There was a sighting of a possible brief tornado just across the border in Illinois in Edgar County which is only 39 miles from our viewing area in Fountain County. There were no reports of damage with that possible twister. This was a little too close for comfort.

The biggest impact the storms had on our area was flooding in southwestern Fountain County and in Clinton County in Frankfort. Randy Rogers reported about an inch of rain in 25 minutes. Now that is a gully washer! Even though it seemed like some kind of record, it fell short of the world record for one minute rainfall set in Unionville, Maryland back on April 7, 1956. That is when a mind-numbing 1.23 inches of rain fell in just 1 minute. Here are some other rainfall totals that were reported across the area.

Today nature will bring us a July delight with not only increasing sunshine, but nice and comfortable humidity. Nature is spoiling us rotten once again. You can thank high pressure building in today. But notice it is anything but permanent and it will move east of us by Thursday afternoon as you see above. This means our "don't blink or you will miss it" weather pattern continues. Whenever we get hot it only lasts a day or two before the storms move in and then we cool down again. Then it heats back up, we brace for storms, and then it gets comfortable again. I see this pattern continuing to repeat at least one more time as we head into the weekend with our next chance of thunderstorms on Saturday. So if you don't like the weather wait a few minutes will be our weather words of the day. I will explain more about this unusual pattern we have been in tonight on the news and I will tell you if and when any heat waves could move our way.

Get out and enjoy today and make sure to remember the sunscreen. Don't let those cool breezes fool you! You may not know this but your chances of getting a bad sunburn are exactly the same at 81 degrees as they are at 88 degrees like we saw yesterday. Sunburns are not temperature dependent but sun angle dependent and that July sun angle is plenty strong. The Ultraviolet Index today is in the very high range. This means a hat and sunscreen are recommended with a SPF of at least 30 or above. Make sure to re-apply the sunscreen every couple hours, especially if you are boating or at the pool where bright surfaces can double your exposure to those UV rays. So remember for it to really be a splendid and sunsational day today make sure to wear the suncreen! Enjoy today's weather blog song of the day above and Sheryl Crow reminds us to get our 45 on so we can rock on!