00:00Well, we have been significantly needing rain across much of the Midwest, the Ohio Valley
00:06and the Northeast. So with our forecast feed, we're going to try to find some meaningful
00:09rain in some of these areas that have been really parched since the middle of the summer.
00:14So let's take a look. Every Thursday, the new drought monitor comes out. This is an
00:19opportunity to take a peek at what's going on out there. So as we look at the drought
00:23monitor right now, I'm going to clear myself off the screen there so you can see more clearly
00:27down into the Southeast. If we were to compare where we were at the beginning of summer,
00:31the map to the left, June 1st, with where we are now, keep in mind this data to the right
00:37includes everything through Monday night into early Tuesday morning of this week. So that
00:41was released today. Big changes that you may notice. We didn't really have much significant
00:45drought anywhere between the area of the Ozarks in Arkansas, Missouri, and the Northeast back
00:52at the beginning of summer. And we really have seen drought expand in many, many areas in
00:56the Ohio Valley, parts of the Northeast, New England especially as well. On the other hand,
01:01we had more significant drought here into parts of the Southwest and the monsoon moisture actually
01:06did chip away at that. We're in a better position here into much of Arizona, still drought. In the
01:13Las Vegas metro, for example, we've seen some strides, some progress there. We've made some progress
01:17there. But the drought has been worsening and it's become very significant here into more and more
01:24of central New England, for example. That's where we've been dealing with a lot of problems here.
01:28And if we were to look at the latest drought monitor zoomed into the Northeast, we've kind
01:32of filled in a lot of the gaps, unfortunately, with recent dryness. We've seen some decent rain
01:37in coastal parts of the Mid-Atlantic. We had some wet weather in central New Jersey, coastal New
01:43Jersey, where things are in better shape than areas to the west. But this most recent storm system,
01:47it really didn't produce much of anything west of the line I'm drawing. So the coastal storm was
01:54beneficial to some, but certainly not for all. And if we look at the past 30 days, lots and lots
02:00of yellow. If you were in an area of gray, you had near normal rainfall amounts. If you were in green
02:05up in Marquette, Michigan, you had above normal rainfall for the past 30 days, but almost the entire
02:10region dry and some significantly below average here. If we go back to the mid part of July through
02:17mid-September, the past two months, huge shortcomings in places like Memphis and Williamsport,
02:22Johnstown, PA, Harrisburg, up in Northern New York, Messina, New York has been very, very dry.
02:27And before we get into the models here, I wanted to show you just generally the overall weather
02:31pattern that we've been dealing with. Persistent dry air has been prevalent across the east. And again,
02:37just a lot of dry flow from the Northeast. And that, if you think about where the air is coming
02:41from, it's coming from Eastern Canada. That's not a place of moisture. If we get flow from the south,
02:46and southwest, that often drives moisture in from the Gulf. So we have not been seeing that.
02:51I'm going to switch things up and head over to the models here. So here's the current weather
02:54pattern, at least a lot. We're looking about around 20,000 feet up into the atmosphere here.
03:01And you can see there's a lot of ridge, ridginess here across parts of the plains. I'm kind of
03:06highlighting where the jet stream configuration is basically kinked up to the north. And then there's
03:13a trough in parts of the east. And you might associate troughs with low pressure and storm
03:17systems. Keep in mind though, if you're going to be on the stormy side of a trough,
03:21if you connect the dots with the trough axis, you need to be east of there. So the business side of
03:26this trough has been offshore where there are some showers out over the ocean. There's another trough
03:31across the plains. The east side of that is where we're seeing a lot of the rain recently here
03:35into the northern plains. So as we go forward in time, you could see as we step into around
03:42Saturday and into Sunday, still generally some ridge, ridginess here across much of the eastern
03:48U.S. And there will be a trough with a couple of spokes of energy that'll be rotating through
03:53the plains, but still a little too far west for us to see much benefit from that. Next week though,
03:58we begin to get into a pattern where we actually do have a trough moving through parts of the northeast.
04:02And we'll be on the east side of that if you're near I-95. That means you'll be on
04:06the wetter side of that. And here comes another one later in the week. So if we look at a
04:10precipitation forecast, we go from dry this weekend in the northeast and the Ohio Valley to some showers
04:15over the mountains. Very spotty though into Saturday and Sunday. But look at next week, Tuesday into
04:20Wednesday, we begin to get into better chances for some downpours, showers and thunderstorms. And by the
04:25way, late next week, there will be some showers and storms out there. But if we look at the European
04:29weekly forecast here, the week running up to the beginning of October, still drier than average.
04:37Near normal precipitation amounts for week two of October. Week three that we begin to see some
04:42greens in week four of October. That's good news. That could spell some relief with some
04:48enhanced chances for rain here across the northeast. And going back to just a graphic to kind of tie this
04:54all up and take it back to the the weather graphics system. Our best chance for rain,
04:59meaningful rain next week is going to be into parts of the Midwest and the plains. But eventually
05:03some showers will be rolling into the northeast. At least there's something out there. It's not
05:08going to end the drought though. So that is your forecast feed. Again, hope for some rain,
05:12but the driest weather is going to be on the way out. We'll slowly begin to see some improvements.
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