3 H's Replaced by the 3 C's in the Year of the Storms

Usually we talk about the 3 H's this time of year which means it will be hazy, hot, and humid. The sky is usually murky and visibility is reduced. But on Wednesday evening you could see we were talking about the 3 C's since it was mainly clear, crisp, and cool! Justin New sent in a nice sunset picture with wispy pink cirrus clouds and no signs of the usual haze and thunderheads. Today it will still feel more like Spring than summer with only a slight chance of a pop up storm late in the day for Newton and Jasper Counties. This is a welcome break from the thunderstorms that have pounded our area over the last few weeks.

In fact this stormy pattern has been with us throughout the year. Check out our yearly precipitation surplus which comes out close to an astonishing 10 inches above average. We should have only had 19 inches of rain, snow, and sleet when it is all melted down. But we have already had just under 29 inches of precipitation. We only average just over 36 inches for the entire year and we are almost there and it is only July! The number of 10 inches above average does not do this stat justice. You could fill a neighborhood full of not kiddy pools but hundreds of olympic size pools, because we are running a surreal 3.5 billion gallons of water above average in Lafayette. No wonder the Wabash was above flood stage for not days but weeks for much of the winter and early Spring. Now it all makes since. All that water has to go somewhere. How did I arrive at this number. First I found out that Lafayette is 20 square miles. Since I know that one inch of rain over one acre is equal to 27,154 gallons I did the math and came up with our billion gallon plus surplus.

The unsually strong jet stream that has been suppressed much farther south than normal continues and it is delivering cold fronts once every 4 days. In the past we have seen Julys with not one cold front. July of 1936 had 10 consecutive days of 100 degrees or above and that was without air conditioning. In all 14 days produced 100 degree weather. We certainly do not have to worry about this. All the sultry weather is out West and that sprawling heat dome you see above continues to dislodge some cooler air from northern Canada that reaches us as cold fronts. This is keeping us in the same pattern of heating up, bracing for storms, and then cooling down.

It is like the movie Ground Hog Day where the same day is played over and over. We are all wondering when nature will get it right. Well it looks like not anytime soon, so we have to go through the same scenes once again. We have more rain showers and thunderstorms back in the forecast. At this point I would take the blizzard that pops up in the movie. We could see isolated activity on Friday and a better chance of rain on Saturday but it will not be a washout. Join me tonight and I will help pinpoint it for you and make sure to enjoy another fine day today!

Our weather song of the day of course is I've Got You Babe! This was song played over and over in Ground Hog Day when Bill Murray woke up only to live that same day over and over again. Like the movie I really do think we will also have a happy ending and nature will finally get out of this funk but it may take a couple more weeks. I think we could make our own movie with all the strange weather we have had this year.Enjoy the song and have a great day!