Good Monday, folks. Here’s hoping you guys had a great weekend! It’s the first first full week of October and things are looking pretty darn wet. Unfortunately, wet Octobers have become common of late and this one looks to be following along with this trend.
For perspective, 7 of the top 10 wettest Octobers on record in Lexington have happened since 2002. That’s absolutely astounding when you consider records have been kept here since the 1870s. Could this one enter the list? It’s sure off to a running… Make that raining… start.
Storms out there today are a little more scattered than what we had on Sunday, but any shower or storm can put down heavy rains. The best coverage looks to be across central and eastern Kentucky. Here are your radars to start the wet weather party…
Tuesday features even less coverage of the showers and storms, but that changes in a hurry by Tuesday night and Wednesday. This is when additional heavy rainfall returns to the region as it spins counterclockwise around low pressure lifting northward through the region. Here’s the setup…
Another 1″-3″ of rain will be possible, with locally higher amounts. That means we will have to be on guard for some high water issues, especially in those areas who’ve picked up quite a bit of rain already.
The overall pattern continues to be skewed warmer than normal through the first half of the month. The CFS 7 day 500mb height anomalies for October 8-15 shows a ridge in the east and a deep trough in the west…
That ridge is slowly getting pushed northward into eastern Canada and that allows for a trough to develop underneath and take up residence across the eastern half of the country October 20-27…
Make it a great first Monday of October and take care.
I think several of the top 10 wettest years for Lexington have been relatively recent too… This is no surprise anymore. Take this year – at this point, we are *almost* at our yearly normal. In other words, if not a drop of anything happened at all for the rest of the year, we’d still end the year at almost normal annual precip (LOL)…. I think the yearly average is like 44 inches or something like that…….and we’re already close to that. We have way more above normal years than below normal (at least since I’ve lived here.)
I have 45.17″ as the normal year. Here in Winchester, we’re already at 52.00″ on the year. From Jun 1-Sept 30 2021, we’re nearly 12″ (11.80″) above normal for that same stretch.
I detest this super wet pattern.
Precipitation for October
In October the average monthly rainfall in Louisville, KY is 0.80 inches with rain usually falling on between 7 and 8 days. 1943 was the driest October with only 0.00 inches of rain falling, and 2007 was the wettest October with 8.76 inches of rain. The wettest single day in October was 23 October 2007 when 4.40 inches of rain fell.
In October it usually snows on between 0 and 1 days. There are thunderstorms on between 1 and 1 days in October.
I always put a lot of confidence in NOAA’s long range (8-14 day outlook) every since they successfully predicted the Fall and Winter of 1976-77 with uncanny accuracy :
https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/814day/
According to the US Drought Monitor, Northern IL is experiencing drought conditions to varying degrees. You guys in Kentucky don’t have to worry about that anytime soon.
Only 21.53 inches of precipitation to date has fallen at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport, which is a significant 8.71 inches below the normal to date of 30.24 inches.
Here in the SW suburbs, the NWS Forecast Office in Romeoville (about 35 miles SW of Chicago) has received 22.82 inches of precipitation to date, which is a huge 10.20 inches below the normal to date of 33.02 inches.
Here in Taylor county to date recorded 43.95 inches of rain. Yesterday we had 1.40 inches of rain. Average yearly precipitation set at 51.0 inches.
Our droughts often occur during the Summer months following an El Nino phase. As you know we are in a continuing ENSO-neutral phase, but is expected to slowly phase into a weak La Nina phase later this Fall and Winter.
For we Snow Lovers we hope the NAO is in a very strong negative phase. This is what happen in 1917-18 a very cold and Snowy Winter.
I looked up 1917 Tropical Atlantic storm season and it was very inactive. This years Tropical Atlantic storm season is very active and that is why we are having Summer like weather in October.