00:00While Isaias is long gone and the major huge headlines of the magnitude of a Category 2 hurricane making a
00:07landfall
00:08not on the table this week, we have some big stories otherwise,
00:11one of which is dangerous flash flooding in the southern plains.
00:15We've had over 5 and 6 inches of rain in parts of Oklahoma, near and west of Oklahoma City,
00:20and we're in the line of fire for some more heavy rain tonight, so that's a big concern.
00:25Beyond that, huge temperature contrast, record highs in parts of the southeast,
00:30and then a tremendous drop in temperature that will take us to the chilliest air so far this season
00:35for many in the central and eastern and northeastern U.S. just for a short time.
00:39It's not going to be here long, but it will be a big drop,
00:42and there will even be a little more snow in the high elevations of the northeast.
00:45We had some snow up in Caribou, Maine. That's far north.
00:48We're looking at a little bit more of the high ground of upstate New York getting in on some wet
00:52flakes this weekend.
00:53So as we take a look at the short-term issues, here we have the rainfall amounts from the past
01:0024 to 36 hours.
01:02Most of this fell between late Tuesday night through Wednesday morning, and we got hit hard along Interstate 40.
01:10In fact, I'm going to soon show you our updated 48-hour rainfall forecast that includes what's fallen,
01:15plus the next 24 hours of what is to come, and we're really concerned about the chunk of Interstate 40
01:20west of Oklahoma City.
01:22That's where we've added an area of 8 to 12 inches for this 48-hour window.
01:27We're in the middle of that right now.
01:29If we look at the last 48 hours, most of this admittedly from the most recent 24 hours, 5, 6,
01:357 inches of rain, and that's been a big deal.
01:38Also, you can see a little bit of a hint of 4-plus there, not far from Miller, Missouri, a
01:43little 5-inch report there.
01:45So it's been a hard hit for many, and I'm going to pan the map north here just a little
01:50bit.
01:50You can see southern Kansas has not been exempt.
01:53Here we have a widespread area of 2 to 4 inches of rain.
01:56It didn't quite make our list for the top 5 reports.
01:59South side of Sedgwick County, down to near Sedan, Kansas, maybe near Independence as well.
02:04And here's Sedan.
02:052 to 4 inches of rain there as well.
02:06It's a big deal.
02:07And actually, we are in the midst of a drought.
02:10And in fact, before I leave this view, while we're here, I might as well show you the current drought
02:17monitor.
02:19And this is not all bad news.
02:21Take a look at how bad the drought is.
02:23So our 8 to 12-inch zone is actually located right in the heart of exceptional top-of-the-scale
02:30drought.
02:32So it's not all bad news, but it certainly is disruptive.
02:35I'm going to look at some modeling, and then we're going to go back to the graphics here.
02:39We'll go back and forth a couple of times.
02:40So what's going to drive the issue tonight here is this big trough in parts of Colorado and New Mexico,
02:46and then bits of energy that are being driven through the base of the east side of that trough.
02:52And you can trace the moisture, and it's actually connected to Hurricane Simon in a very loose, very ambiguous way.
03:00It's not Hurricane Simon itself, but Simon's helping to pump some of the moisture northward.
03:05And we need to keep an eye out for these areas of extra lift in the atmosphere,
03:09these bits of energy kind of rotating through the southeast fringe of our large-scale trough.
03:15And this is going to be with us just for about 24 hours longer.
03:18Once we hit Friday, the base of the trough exits,
03:20and we are in a position of dry weather in Oklahoma and northwest Texas beginning on Friday.
03:27So as we kind of shift gears, this map has a lot of different information on it.
03:33A couple of things to point out.
03:35First off, the color coding, the maroons, that's precipitable water.
03:39And the weather balloon that was launched in Oklahoma City early this Wednesday set a record.
03:44Now, the record database for weather balloons doesn't go back as far as, you know, it doesn't go back centuries.
03:49But this is a record for the past few decades, at least, for most moisture content from the surface to
03:56the top of the atmosphere for the date,
03:58for mid-October, for October 14th in Oklahoma City.
04:01So basically, the message here is that this is the most humid it can be from the surface to the
04:06top of the troposphere this time of the year in Oklahoma City.
04:10We're going to see very efficient rain producers.
04:12The other thing I wanted to point out with this, and again, there's a lot of data on here,
04:17but we got this low-pressure system over Colorado, and then these wind barbs,
04:22these wind barbs are the winds in knots at about 850 millibars.
04:27So we're looking about 5,000 feet up, about a mile up into the atmosphere.
04:31And what I want you to notice is the more little flags there are, the more lines on the end
04:37of the flags, the stronger the winds.
04:38And so here we got 20-knot winds over West Texas here earlier this afternoon,
04:43and 15- and 10-knot winds at that altitude over Oklahoma City.
04:47But look at this tonight.
04:48It gets really humid, and the low-level jet, it's kind of like a low-level jet stream, if you
04:53will,
04:53about a mile up into the atmosphere.
04:55Now we're seeing 30-knot winds, 25- and 30-knot winds,
04:58that will fuel a new round of thunderstorms late this evening and during the overnight.
05:03So we got high-octane fuel.
05:04It's been saturated, and we're dealing with strengthening winds just above the surface for the night tonight.
05:10That's going to be a problem, and that will lead to some very heavy rain.
05:13Before I jump over to this big temperature contrast conversation,
05:17we're most concerned about flooding through tonight, tomorrow, tapering off tomorrow night.
05:22Again, this map is covering a lot of real estate, and by the Thursday night portion of it,
05:26we're mainly looking east of Oklahoma.
05:28But what we did was, in response to the heavy rain that we've already seen,
05:33plus the additional heavy rain we expect tonight,
05:35I'm highlighting the addition to this map of an 8- to 12-inch, 48-hour rainfall amount,
05:42beginning last night.
05:43What's fallen now, some of you have seen 5- to 7 inches in that area,
05:48and we're going to tack on another maybe 3- to 5 inches in the same area,
05:53if we end up in a bad spot here, with the heaviest, heaviest rain in pockets.
05:57Not everybody's going to see 3- to 5 more inches of rain,
05:59but there will be localized areas, maybe the scale of a couple of counties,
06:02perhaps west of I-35, that see another 3- to 5.
06:05So that's going to be a big concern.
06:06All right, that's the flooding story.
06:08Later this week, we still have a lot of heat across the south and the southeast.
06:13We got more record-breaking heat Thursday.
06:15Jonesboro, Arkansas, Nashville record highs for hottest October 15th
06:19in Nashville, Huntsville, Atlanta, Chattanooga.
06:24Another look here for Friday for the 16th of October.
06:28Record-breaking heat into Raleigh and New Bern and Greenville and Atlanta.
06:32Pensacola will be a little shy, but we have them on there for good reason.
06:36All right, final thing.
06:38Big cool-down coming to the Midwest and the Northeast.
06:42Here's a look at actual weather real field temperatures from Tuesday.
06:46Versus Saturday, get ready for it.
06:47Snowflakes above 3,000 feet in the mountains.
