Weekend Rain Chances

On Thursday, Anthony showed you the updated drought conditions for eastern Iowa and western Illinois, and they showed little improvement.  We do have a chance of rain later Saturday afternoon with a passing cold front.

QPF (Quantitative Precipitation Forecast) from the Weather Prediction Center ending 7PM Sunday

As you can see, the QCA is under the 0.25" to 0.50" area.  I am leaning toward the low end of the stick on this one.  We won't have much forcing or instability to deal with as the cold front treks through the area, but with ample moisture available we will still manage to get anywhere from a tenth to a quarter of an inch of rain.

As far as our rainfall deficit goes, we are running 1.95" below average for the month of September, and a deficit of 5.79" since June 1st.  However, with the abnormally wet spring, we still run a surplus of 3.50" for the entire year.

Looking beyond Saturday---another cold front will bring rain next Thursday & Friday, bringing a cool down next weekend.  Of course, that's still a week away and leaves plenty of time for fine-tuning.  We'll take what we can get!