The Perfect Fair Weather System in Time for Summer's End

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 19TH (HAPPY FRIDAY!)

Lindy Karberg sends in a sailboat picture on Lake Freeman where the boating is great and the catfish are really biting!

I know you are asking why I would be blogging in the wee hours of Friday morning with no rain in the forecast the rest of the month and if anybody does see any rain they will be very lucky. Well, when you have the best viewers and bloggers one could ask for you do go the extra mile. Lindy's picture above and nice note really fired me up and I got my second and third wind. I give Lindy and you credit for this but I do admit that when the weather is tranquil outside that is the time to really analyze things long-range here in Indiana. I am even busier when the weather is quiet outside so that you will be ready when that big elephant of a weather change shows up in your backyard. It's Indiana not California so this will not last and as I said on the air I am so happy I am not a meteorologist in California. Their weather would drive me nuts! Indiana weather is one of a kind and even brings out the poet in me as you see above that tells the weather story. It is a start....I am not Bill Murray on Ground Hog Day just yet but give it a little time. I have always wanted to go to Punxsutawney and do a weather report from there. Maybe this will be my year. I will keep practicing the poetry and pray for a blizzard!

Who can sleep when Richard sends in this great Harvest moon picture. Attica was lit up like a golden jewel with this bright moonlight on Thursday night. Richard Beedle also said it even had some nice red tinges to it. I think Kasatochi and the Earth's tilt this time of year are working wonders just like we discussed here on the blog. If you like this picture we can expect 11 more in a row like it. That is right 11 more fine nights. Phil Collins eat your heart out! Give me 11 more nights...11 more nights! I think it is time for a dedication.

Now that we are singing I also wanted to thank you for all your e-mails and phone calls about what the dominant color of this year's woolly worms have been. Here are the latest caterpillar polls as of 12 a.m. on Friday morning. We have projected the darker woolly worms the winner in one of the biggest comebacks ever. There are a couple counties that are too close to call, but again here are the numbers and projected winners!

DARK WOOLLY WORMS: 52%
LIGHTER WOOLLY WORMS: 48%

This means we will have a snowier and colder winter! Now, drum roll please.....what does the science tell you. Well everybody knows that I am a huge snowlover and would love to talk about snow waist high by time Santa does his fly-by. I may get my wish of a White Christmas after all but we all learned plenty of lessons in the winter of 2000-01 and these lessons may be repeated this year. The change in the long-range maps are being caused by anamolous weather taking place in the North Pacific Ocean and Indian Ocean. The world markets and ocean water temperatures have both collapsed and certainly trended downward and a neutral to weak la nina winter is looking more likely. There is nobody to bail us out of this one, not even the U.S. government.

Last winter we had a strong la nina so it will be a different winter. I think we go cold early with our biggest shot of snow in December and maybe early January. I wouldn't mind another New Year's Blizzard. But here's the thing......even with the developments across the globe I am holding firm to my original forecast of above average temperatures this winter and slightly below average snowfall. As I look at weak La Nina's from yesteryear that match up with this year 4 out of those 6 good matches produced snowfall that was below average including a tear-jerker of a year in 1971-72 with only 14.4 inches. We can and will do a little better than that snow geese. Here is what I can feed you. Those weak La Nina years all averaged out to 19.56 inches of snow and this is a perfect match with my original forecast of 19 inches of snow.

What I do see in my crystal ball is we may have more than half of this snow before we even ring in 2009. It will be interesting to see. Also, if we can squeeze out a blizzard I do think this total will be closer to the 30 inches we saw in the weak La Nina of 1974-75. Mary Anne in Remington will never forget this scene in Remington after the great blizzard of 2007. The great memories oh yes!

I cannot wait to blog with everybody this winter and our new morning meteorologist Stephanie Davis absolutely loves snow as well. She will be on the air in the near future and she will be a perfect fit on our weather team. Brian Wolfe our weekend guy is also a snow hound so between the three of us and Live Doppler 18 this winter you could not be covered any better than that. Now bring on the snow cover!!

But not this weekend, I would have too many people after me. There is no pressure or anything. We only have the Heart Walk, Purdue game, Hunger Hike, Art on the Wabash, the Apple Popcorn Fest, and soccer games. This is the short list. Oh I did not include all of those garage sales that were canceled last weekend being held this weekend! You can thank my wife Julie and the perfect fair weather system building across much of the country thanks to the jet stream lifting well up into Canada. This is not all too unusual for this time of year, but what makes it incredible is the huge turnaround in our weather. We have had rain one out of every two days so far in September and already doubled our rain days we saw in August. But this dry spell will rival one we saw during the drought of 2007. This should keep us dry through at least the beginning of next weekend and the good news is that the Feast of the Hunters' Moon is now looking drier rather than wetter. I will have more on this tonight and go live from a special football venue so make sure to join us. It will be a lot of fun, AS ALWAYS!! Thanks for being there and reading. I will see you soon.