Whether you’ve been watching me throughout the month or just looking out your window, I’m sure you’re aware that our month of October has been a very wet one.  In fact, it’s the wettest October we’ve experienced in Sioux City since records have been kept. 

And the amazing part of this month isn’t just the amount of rain that fell, but the number of days in which we saw rain.  In fact, assuming we stay dry on Saturday (which we should), we’ll have had a trace or more of rain (or snow) on 24 of our 31 days of October.

November of course arrives on Sunday and I’m happy to report that we should have a mostly dry stretch of weather as we head into our first week of the new month.  Have a great weekend and a safe Halloween.

Ron Demers

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The weather was rainy outside Thursday, but that didn’t keep the 2nd graders at Bryant Elementary and me from having a good time at their school.  We talked about the weather, both outside and what they see on TV.  Their teacher tells me they had really been looking forward to this so I hope they had a good time and learned a little something in the process.  Here’s a couple pictures of my visit.

I told them that it should be drier for their trick-or-treating by Saturday.  I’ll try on Friday to blog about this latest rain that helped break an October rain record here in Sioux City.  Until then, good luck staying dry and thanks again to the Bryant 2nd graders for inviting me there.

Ron Demers

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After a couple of days with the sun, the clouds have moved back in today.  And I guess we shouldn’t be too surprised by that fact.  October has been an unusually cloudy and wet month and the National Weather Service compiled some statistics associated with this cloudy trend.  You can check out that article by going to http://www.crh.noaa.gov/news/display_cmsstory.php?wfo=fsd&storyid=34538&source=0

Now we have to get ready for more rain.  A storm system that is going to give places like Denver, CO, 8 to 12 inches of snow, is going to give us the liquid form of precipitation.  Slight chances of rain could be with us as early as this evening with heavier rain moving in later tonight.  Rain is likely for Thursday with Friday looking a bit quieter at this point.  Here’s some of the rainfall accumulation that could be expected with this system:

Rainfall Forecast Through Thursday

The good news for trick-or-treaters is that we’re still expecting dry conditions for Saturday although temperatures are going to be a little on the cool side.

Ron Demers

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We’ve receivedover 5″ of October rain, we endured the coldest first few weeks of October on record, and we now have the opportunity to change our last week of October forecast for the better.  At one point our computer models were showing us in the 40s with rain and snow From Wednesday into Friday, but it now appears that we’ll be much warmer.  The storms system responsible for the late week frightful weather is actually going to stall over the Rockies, keeping us in what we call southerly flow…all this means is that winds will be out of the south, and this will lead to mild temperatures for the whole week. Here is a jet level model image from Wednesday at 6 pm:

This upper level storm will crash through the region most likely Thursday and Friday, and yes, it does still look like we’ll get some more unwelcome rain, but probably not snow. Halloween? It’s a ways away, but as of right now, it looks partly cloudy, cool, and a bit breezy. Not bad though, right?

Dave Winslow

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I think the rain is getting old for many of us, especially farmers.  We’ve now seen a trace or more of rain on 19 of our 22 days of October and we’re continuing in an active pattern for a while in our forecast.  These last two days have been especially rough with not just some rain, but moderately heavy rain for a prolonged period of time with chilly temperatures to go along with it.  Here’s our rainfall climatology as of 5 pm Thursday.

We might see some snow mix in with the rain tonight with probably less than an inch of accumulation in Sioux City.  But out west there could be as much as 2 to 5 inches of snow where a Winter Weather Advisory is in effect for Antelope, Pierce, and Madison counties.

Hang in there.  This storm system pulls farther east on Friday bringing an end to our precipitation and leaving us with a nice day on Saturday.  As I mentioned though, we are still in the middle of an active 7-day forecast.

Ron Demers

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Enough of the rain and snow already! That’s what many of us are saying as a fickle October continues. Here are some rain stats for Sioux City:

This next rain event will be beginning this morning and not really tapering off much until Thursday night or Friday morning. Many computer models are showing over 3/4″, to over 1 1/2″ of rain when this thing wraps up. Thankfully our weather pattern will offer at least some drying time and some sun for the weekend and into early next week.

Dave Winslow

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The following statement may not surprise you too much:  “This is the coldest first two weeks of October in Sioux City since records began in the late 1800s.”  If your response it “no kidding”, that was pretty much mine too.  We’ve averaged only 42.9° from October 1st through the 14th ranking it coldest ever during that time period.  The rankings are below:

Our weather has been out of whack this month with only one day so far coming in above average for our high temperature and all but one day through October 16th has had at least a trace of precipitation.  The weather does straighten out a bit this weekend with more warmth and more sunshine.

Ron Demers

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Climate Prediction Center’s forecast for November-January:

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Did you know that the fall season is the best time of year to replenish subsoil moisture for the spring growing season? Ok, that’s probably the least of our worries now as the farmers are hoping and praying for dry weather to get out and finish the fall harvest. The rain has been tough to turn off during this cool and active pattern.  It’s really stacked up….check out the rain totals for Sioux City:

How about in the weeks to come? We’ll dry out nicely this weekend, but there’s another round of rain and perhaps some storms for Tuesday. It does look quite a bit warmer though next week, and it should stay fairly mild for a week and a half, beyond that is guess work in late October sometimes.

Dave Winslow

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In case you feel like we’re in for a long, hard winter as a result of our cold, snowy October so far, statistics may prove otherwise.  The National Weather Service down in Omaha spent some time running the numbers from other years that have had snow accumulations in the month of October.  They’ve found that more often we end up with an average or warmer than average winter.  Who knows what this year will bring but I’ll give you the link to this article which has some interesting statistics:  http://www.crh.noaa.gov/news/display_cmsstory.php?wfo=oax&storyid=31845&source=0

Also, this Thursday morning the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration  will come out with their Winter Outlook.  More on that later this week.

Ron Demers

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