Update - Monday, September 15, 2014

As predicted the cold shot last week was pretty substantial.  Across much of the midwest and plains states there were NUMEROUS record cold temperatures observed late last week.  In Kansas there were several sites that saw temperatures below freezing.  The coldest I saw in Kansas at an official NWS location was 31 degrees at Ness City.  It got down to 30 at a mesonet site near Jetmore!  High temperatures Friday were only in the 40s and 50s and across Wyoming and the western Dakota's there was heavy snow with as much as 10 inches reported!  I've talked briefly about this in previous posts but I "think" the cold was the result of the pattern that started last fall and was waning during the late summer.  In the same token the pattern that delivered the cold may be tied to forcing that has been in place across the northern Pacific that helped produce the long term pattern in the first place.  Hint - the forcing remains (and is likely to persist this winter).  I will do a fall/winter outlook later this month when I have more time to devote to the outlook.  Look for that outlook around the 24th-26th.

Rainfall this past week was most widespread across Colorado, the northern half of Kansas and into Missouri.  Since the 1st of September there have been quite a few areas that received some beneficial rains, especially across some of the driest areas of the drought. The following map shows the rainfall that has fallen:

The U.S. Drought Monitor continues to show improvement across the central and southern plains.

Back to the cold.  I'm guessing that the stretch of cold has set back the maturing of the sorghum?  How about the beans and corn?  As I mentioned in earlier posts, September should end up below normal on temperatures.  There will still be some very warm (and windy days) but those days will become less numerous.  As of this writing another significant cold front had moved across much of the area with temperatures only in the 50s.

The next big weather maker will likely be the remnants of Hurricane Odile that was moving into the Gulf of California Monday.  This Monday afternoons satellite image shows the massive amount of moisture associated with the hurricane. 

 
The remnants will help support very heavy rains across the southwest U.S. which has been hard hit this past month.  Currently it appears that the remnants will then move east into the central plains by the weekend and should enhance rainfall chances.

The Weather Prediction Center generated a map this afternoon which showed the possible rainfall amounts during the next 7 days.  The story here is additional significant rains across the drought stricken areas of the plains and even central and northern Texas!

In earlier posts I mentioned the possibility of September being above normal on rainfall.  If the remnants of the hurricane do in fact track as depicted, then yes the month will end up above normal.   One of the computer models (that really is not that accurate but depicts trends) continues to indicate a wet fall.

The map above shows just several ensemble (computer runs with slightly different initial conditions) iterations and most are wet into late October.

What about El Nino?  It is S L O W L Y developing or so it would appear.  Temperatures off the southern part of Australia (southern hemisphere) continue to cool and is increasing the ocean thermal circulations which is helping this warm event (El Nino) develop.

NOTE:  A prolonged period of negative values indicates an El Nino. 

I'll hopefully find some time to post again in a week.  Remember to share the link for this blog (if you find it useful anyway).   The link is:  swkswx.blogspot.com