Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Storm Ara Pounds the Area with Heavy Bursts of Rain



It has been a blast hearing from all of my long-lost bloggers again! It has been too quiet and tonight at 5 and 6 it was certainly fun tracking the rain on Live Doppler 18. The big thing to update here is that many areas have already had .25" to .50" of rain and the models have underdone the rainfall amounts. During the shows I updated the expected rainfall totals from .50" to 1" and maybe a smidge higher in a couple spots. You can see what is happening above and way I am bullish on the rain amounts. We have a nice, rich flow of moisture from the Gulf of Mexico and it is a slow-mover with the main surface low not tracking up into Wisconsin until tomorrow morning. You can see our Precision 18 model is showing some lingering showers across the area even tomorrow morning so you will want to leave home a few minutes earlier.

I had a great list of names to choose from which included Autumn, but I decided to go with Justin New's Ara from the name Arabella. He researched this and it means to bring rain. Well, Ara is living up to its name and bringing plenty of rain and lightning tracker is showing the first lightning bolts this evening is southern Illinois. Ara is just getting started so keep blogging away and have fun. The last system we saw do something like this was Ike, but this time around we will not have to worry about any damaging wind gusts or flooding! Just be careful of some ponding of water on the roadways. I will have the latest numbers on Ara here on the blog and the air tonight. Take care and get out the galoshes! Justin has sent in some of our first Arabella pictures. Notice the huge raindrops and the free car wash courtesy of nature! Thanks Justin!



Now I am looking for some wet dog pictures from Teri. My dog is too timid out in the rain. BJ is certainly not a storm chaser, but a storm hider. This first autumn storm will be one we will not forget after being so dry since the remnants of Ike came through on the 14th of September. Tomorrow here on the blog we will compare and contrast the two systems and even talk about a Marco connection. Yes, Ara apparently had a close friend that helped our rain totals along nicely. Be safe and keep on blogging!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

The rain has not let off since around 2:00 this afternoon, It was kind of sultry when I got off work, now I am chilly after getting wet from unloading groceries, Glad for a home cooked dinner using the oven that warmed our home:)

My dogs are not likeing this weather, they just cant take being out in the rain, silly dogs!

I like the name for our first feel of this fall weather pattern.

Wonder how far we will go though the alphabet in 2008-2009??

All keep dry and warm:)

Teri In Laf.

Anonymous said...

Hey Teri, our dogs are just the opposite we can't keep them out of the rain! They come in soooooo wet it is not even funny!!! :-) But as long as they have fun I guess lol.

Justin.

Anonymous said...

I am shocked that there has not been any watches or warnings. I bet there will be by tomorrow. Thank-you Ara I have missed the rain so much.

Sam

Anonymous said...

More heavy heavy downpoor's I will be sure to post my total rainfall amount on here tomorrow.....

I love the sound of the rain outside nice and cool as well..

Justin.

Anonymous said...

Night bloggers.

Sleep well with the light rain tapping the window.

Justin.