Midwest Weekly Highlights - December 15-21, 2009

An Unremarkable Week

The Midwest experienced another colder than normal week, with the the coldest weather over the snow-covered portions of Iowa, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Average daily temperatures ranged from near normal over large parts of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and northwestern Minnesota, to as much as 5°F below normal over central Iowa (Figure 1), where the snow was still 10 to 15 inches deep (Figure 2).

This was also a very dry week across the region, with precipitation for the week generally running at 25 percent of normal or less (Figure 3). Most of the precipitation fell as snow as a series of clipper systems dove southeastward across the Midwest. The exceptions were small portions of Minnesota and Indiana where precipitation reached 75 percent of normal, and in western Kentucky. Precipitation in western Kentucky was more than 200 percent of normal, This precipitation came as snow as the extensive precipitation shield from a major coastal storm on December 19-20 reached westward across the Appalachians. Eight to 12 inches of snow accumulated in the higher elevations of western Kentucky, with one to three inches accumulating as far north and east as southwestern Ohio. At the end of the week at least a trace of snow was on the ground over all of the Midwest except for the southwestern two-thirds of Missouri (Figure 4).

There was little change in the drought status across the upper Midwest, with Moderate to Severe drought remaining across the northern quarter of Wisconsin (Figure 5).

SDH