Midwest Weekly Highlights - October 8-14, 2003

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Midwest weather continues to favor harvest activities.

Harvesting of corn, soybeans, and other crops continued in full swing across the Midwest this week.  The weather for most of the region was generally warm and dry, although two strong weather systems did bring heavy rain to some areas and briefly halted field work.
 
Precipitation this week was above normal over the western two thirds of the Midwest, but well below normal from eastern Michigan south through Ohio and eastern Kentucky (Figure 1). A slow-moving upper level wave moving out of the central plains on October 8 set off large area of showers and some thunderstorms as it moved eastward (Figure 2, Unisys).   Rain developed overnight on October 8 in Missouri. Some of the rain was heavy, prompting flood watches to be issued in southwestern Missouri.  Unfortunately, dry northwestern Missouri received little significant rainfall from this system.  By the morning of October 9 some showers had reached as far north as Iowa and into western and southern Illinois, but the heaviest rain remained in southern portions of the Midwest. Springfield, IL set a new record daily maximum rainfall for October 9 of 1.20 inches, breaking the old record of 1.05 inches in 1990.
 
A cold front on October 11 brought rain to the upper Midwest, with most amounts a half inch or less (Figure 3, NCEP/HPC). The second major rain producer this week moved through the Midwest on October 13-14.  A low pressure system in the southern plains spread rain and a few thunderstorms through Missouri, southern Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. A few severe storms occurred in southwestern Missouri, producing some minor wind damage. Rainfall from this system was more widespread and heavier than the system at the beginning of the week.  Rainfall exceeded 1.50 inches in a large area from southeastern Iowa through western and south-central Illinois (Figure 4, NWS).  Despite this precipitation, rainfall is below normal for the month so far across the entire region except for extreme southern Missouri, western Illinois, and northern lower Michigan (Figure 5).
 
Indian Summer continued into this week as temperatures soared to 80 degrees as far north as Minnesota.  The mild weather came to an end with the passage of a cold front on October 11, and temperatures returned to near normal levels. Temperatures briefly rebounded before the southern plains system brought some reinforcing cool air into the region on October 13 and 14. Average temperatures for the week ranged from 2F above normal in southwestern Missouri to 12F above normal across northern Minnesota and Wisconsin (Figure 6).