Update 09/17/18

Overdue posting of the High Plains Weather!  I got really busy this past few weeks and since this blog is done on my personal "free" time, I just got overwhelmed and unable to post anything.   The previous post on the 31st of August was during the middle of an unseasonably wet and cool period.  That ended, essentially, about a week ago on the 10th.  Many areas of plains received widespread precipitation but unfortunately many areas had way TOO much rain with many locations flooded.

The map of precipitation is not available and I don't have the resources at the moment to generate a map.

This past week and weekend got very warm and windy which is rather typical for the first half of September.    Many have asked if this was related to Hurricane Florence on the east coast and the short answer is NO!  Now that the Atlantic Basin is getting very quiet (tropical system wise), the forcing is transitioning to the Pacific side.  Most importantly for the plains is the gathering energy across the eastern Pacific and western Mexico.  It appears rather likely that a tropical system will develop near the Baja region.  At the same time there will be a series of upper level systems racing across the northern plains which will contribute to a cold front moving into the central plains by Wednesday night or Thursday.  On this afternoons satellite, those upper systems are denoted by the red X's across the Pacific NW.  The potential Baja system is the X and additional thunderstorms (white blobs to the right of the green jet stream) near the right hand corner of the image...

The impacts of the front moving into the plains and the approach of the tropical Baja system should result in widespread thunderstorms by the end of the week.  Those that are even close to drilling wheat (if it's dried out enough) may want to rethink that planting as some locations could get excessive rainfall and runoff/erosion.  Those that might be laying feed down - you might also want to reconsider until after the weekend.  Here is the latest thinking from the Weather Prediction Center....

Don't take values or maximum amounts literally.  This is just a first approximation.  The Baja system has not fully developed and the front has not made a move yet.  But, it appears very likely that widespread precipitation across the central plains will occur.  The question is exactly where and how much.

I'll try and update again by the end of the week.