Good Friday, everyone. We have a cold front slowly sinking southward across the state today, bringing showers and thunderstorms and much cooler air. This small preview of fall will then be followed by more showers and storms next week as even cooler air tries to dive into our region for Labor Day Weekend.

Today’s front will have rounds of showers and storms along and ahead of it as it sinks southward. This means the threat for rain slowly ends from north to south as the day wears on. The farther south you live, the better the chance for some of this to hang around into the evening, potentially impacting high school football action.

The temperature trend is very pleasant with many areas not getting out of the 70s today. Overnight lows drop into the 50s as that cool/dry air takes control from the north. This will also set the stage for an awesome looking Saturday. Highs will generally range from the upper 70s to low 80s with low humidity and a mix of sun and clouds.

The threat for showers and storms will return quickly on Sunday as our flow becomes southwesterly…

Moisture from the Gulf will stream northward early next week and interact with a cold front. Here’s Monday…

And Tuesday…

That will be followed by another front later in the week, possibly setting up an even cooler brand of air for Labor Day Weekend.

This current and future rains are welcome news because things have been pretty dry for much of August, but rain totals are still much above average for the year.  Some folks are throwing the word drought around, but that simply comes from the terrible Drought Index which basically shows everything as a “drought”. I’ve called that index out for a long time now because of that.

The standard bearer for Drought Status has always been the Palmer Drought Index. This is still my go to and is what everyone remembers from true drought years over the past few decades. Here’s the current Palmer Drought Index…

Notice how much of the country shows up in the “moist” category. If you look at the legend it shows for drought, it has three categories… Moderate. Severe and Extreme. Those are the categories everyone remembers all us TV people talking about in REAL drought years.

Unfortunately, NOAA came up with something new called the Drought Monitor. It’s an index that lowered the standards so much that any dry period will show up as a drought. But pay attention to the legend…

The legend is totally different from the Palmer Drought Index, so if you hear a Moderate Drought, it’s not even close to even meaning what you’ve always associated with a drought because it comes from a 100% different source and classification system. Can you imagine what a true drought year would look like on that scale? Years like 1988, 1999, 2002 or 2007 would look like Kentucky no longer exists on that map.

Perspective is something sorely lacking in our weather community nowadays. Ok, I’m off my soapbox! 🙂

I leave you with your Friday storm tracking toys…

He a great day and take care.