Update 10/7/14

The past week has seen a continued transition into a typical fall pattern across North America, including tropical activity across the Pacific Ocean basin.  As of this afternoon there are two areas that will help impact the western High Plains.  The first area is along the Gulf of California coast where Tropical Storm Simon resides.  The second area includes a super typhoon and other typhoons that will ultimately bring a change in a week to 10 days.  I might add that there are two other deep troughs (denoted by the L's on the map below) that will contribute to forecaster uncertainty during the next 7 to 10 days as the pattern gets "messy" and active.

First Simon....although not as strong as former Odile was, this system has the potential to bring widespread precipitation to much of the central U.S.   As of Tuesday afternoon the weakening system was headed north towards the northern reaches of the Gulf of California.




Now, you might remember that Odile did not deliver much to our local area.  Instead, it brought extremely large amounts of rainfall to southern New Mexico and west Texas (and parts of central Texas).  The remnants of Simon appear to be headed in a path that was initially similar to Odile.  See the earlier posts here and here.

Will Simon progress the same as Odile?  There are subtle differences in the flow regime and chances are a little better, at least as it currently appears, that the remnants of Simon might be a little more kind to our area in terms of producing rain.  This is NOT to say that there will be extremely heavy rains, but at least there should be some rain.  How much?  The Weather Prediction Center (WPC) branch of the National Weather Service offers the following solution:

If this solution comes to pass there will be heavy rainfall across Oklahoma, eastern Kansas and into the mid Mississippi valley.  Across much of the western high plains amounts could be generous too but not excessive.  I think that there will be rain, especially Thursday night and Friday, but unfortunately there may still be a few locations that "miss out".  I hope those that miss out have already had some of the rain that fell during the past 1 to 2 weeks. 

During the past 7 days most of the rain fell across the Missouri valley. There was at least some rain locally with the heaviest down near the Oklahoma border south of Ashland where one observer had over 3 inches.

Beyond the system this week, it could get interesting (if not confusing for forecasters) sometime next week.  The aforementioned typhoons across the western Pacific will likely cause a significant amplification in the jet stream coming into the U.S.  It's impossible to say what the impacts might be especially since it is unknown exactly where that amplification will occur.  Later in the fall and winter it will become more obvious but since the cold season pattern is just setting up, I just don't have much faith in where.  Point here is to stay tuned.  I'll try and update again towards the end of the week.  On the table is more precipitation and perhaps the first widespread freeze of the fall (there have been localized areas that have froze already).