Good Sunday, folks. A slow-moving storm system is rolling into the region today, bringing showers and thunderstorms along for the ride. This is some much-needed rain as we continue to track a pattern change through early November.

Let’s kick this off with what’s crackalackin out there today.

Showers and storms are increasing from southwest to northeast. Areas across the east and north will be the last to see the rains arrive today, so your temps will be above everyone else. For those getting in on rain for much of the day, temps hang around in the 50s.

Spiraling bands of showers then continue through tonight and into Halloween. This won’t be constant, but scattered stuff will likely impact Halloween activities and some trick or treating.

Most areas will pick up .25″-1″ of rain through Halloween, with locally higher amounts across central and western Kentucky.

Here are your radars to track your Sunday soakers…

Another weak system rolls in here late Tuesday and Wednesday, but this can only spit out a few very light showers…

The late next week/weekend system continues to be a bit of an enigma on the models. The latest Canadian is back to bringing a strong cold front through here with showers and thunderstorms on Saturday…

The tropics are doing some late season flexing and this will be a big player in the weather across North America.  I’ve noticed through the years that when we get a lot of slow moving tropical systems in late fall, the overall pattern in North America seems to also be slow to move. Is this because of the tropics or is this because of some overall driving force that creates new life in the tropics, while also slowing down the weather behind it? That I can’t answer, but it’s something I’ve pointed out a lot through the years.

We are seeing just such a setup right now as the tropics are pulling a Frankenstein and coming back to life…

Let me use medium range EURO as an explainer of my above musings.

On this northern hemispheric map, I’ve highlighted the players of interest…

The possible tropical system it the Caribbean helps slow the pattern across the United States. It keeps a ridge popping across the eastern half of the country while a trough hangs in the west.

At the same time, big changes are also showing up to our north. That ridge going into Alaska should flood Canada with very cold air and argues for that trough in the west to slowly migrate eastward. As that’s happening, the coldest air relative to normal across the northern hemisphere is sliding onto our side of the North Pole.

What’s all this mean? To my eyes, it suggests when the tropics settle down, things can turn cold and wintry across much of the country. I look at this and think about the quick transition to winter we had around here this past December to January.

I’ll hit you up with another update late today. Make it a good one and take care.