Midwest Weekly Highlights - November 22-30, 2011

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Warm End to November

The last nine days of November were above normal across the Midwest. Temperature departures ranged from a couple degrees in the south to more than 10°F above normal in parts of Minnesota (Figure 1). Daily temperature records during the period were dominated by record high minimum temperatures with more than 200. Record high maximums added several dozen more records to the total while there was only one record low in the period. Thanksgiving day was quite warm across the western half of the region with temperatures ranging from 10°F to more than 20°F above normal (Figure 2).
 

Precipitation

Heavy precipitation totaled several inches from southeast Missouri to southeast Michigan and areas to the southeast (Figure 3). To the northwest totals dropped off rapidly with parts of Minnesota and Iowa receiving nothing during the last nine days of the month. In the southeast totals were two to five times normal (Figure 4) causing minor to moderate flooding in Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky along with parts of Illinois and Michigan (Figure 5). More than 450 daily precipitation records were set or tied in the period. Drought conditions showed improvements in Missouri and southeast Iowa but degradation in northwest Iowa and Minnesota (Figure 6).
 

Snow

Snow was not widespread in late November but several areas picked up anywhere from an inch to more than 6 inches (Figure 7). The upper Midwest was below normal for the period but southern Michigan, Indiana, and southeast Missouri and western Kentucky all picked up higher than normal amounts (Figure 8). With the relatively warm temperatures, much of the snow melted by the end of the month with significant snow cover remaining only in parts of Indiana, Michigan, and the arrowhead of Minnesota (Figure 9).
 

-MST-