Will Halloween Be A Rain-Out?

When I was a kid we didn't have to ask what night Trick Or Treating was. It was always Halloween night. We didn't even have a time range for going out, everyone just kind of knew and went out. By the time I was old enough to have a kid of my own I had to rely on the news because every community seemed to have a different night for beggars. Luckily this year I feel like most everyone settled on Halloween night here in Central Ohio. The problem with that? Well... it's gonna rain.

We've known for a few days we could have a high precipitation event this week, but it appears we're settling on a Wednesday through Friday timeframe now. The NWS already has a Flood Watch out for the entire area:

A front will quickly move in from the west tomorrow before hitting the brakes over the area and stalling out. Where it stalls out will determine whether we have a rain-out tomorrow night or not.

Right now there are two solutions for tomorrow evening, and neither solution looks like a 100% washout. But does the front stall directly over I-71, or move down more along the Ohio River? If it dives further south, we may have a completely rain free evening. If not? It's scattered showers, with heavier embedded cells possible:

The HRRR pictured favors the northern solution, which means it'll definitely rain... but how much and how constant? Earlier runs of the NAM had all of the rain south of us, but now the newest run matches back up with the HRRR. I'm leaving the southern solution out there as a possibility just because it's been shown before, and it could still happen. It all depends how far south and east this front pushes before becoming stationary.

Once it does stall, you see that slug of precip in Missouri in the model above? Expect a couple rounds of those through Wednesday night and Thursday before we finally get a push from a low that'll ride along the boundary and finally push this system out of here on Friday:

By Friday afternoon we could actually see some sun and a break in the rain for the whole weekend. A drastic change from what we'll see coming up. Expect 2-4" widespread with this system, with road and small stream flooding not just possible by likely.

It'll be a wet Halloween, but here's to hoping it isn't a total washout for us.

Weekend of Rain

Oh if only this were January. Then our wet weekend of storms would actually be a weekend of decent snows. Today and tomorrow we'll get hit with a double barrel low that becomes a coastal storm. Parts of northern New England will get their first decent snow of the season from this. If we saw this on the Euro in January, we'd be ready for snow:

Instead, get ready for a soggy evening tonight and some leftover showers tomorrow. Temps are going to be on a very slow climb from the low 40s Friday morning to near 50° by midnight. Come on. Just knock 20° off of that! Don't expect much temperature deviation on Saturday as our storm becomes a coastal low, we may stay at 50° all day.

And then by Sunday we'll see a quick hitting clipper system! Now you KNOW that would have brought us snow in January. Instead, more showers:

We're in a very active pattern for the next week or two, so our rain chances will be high, but as we get in to November we should eventually end this pattern with our first snow chances. I'm looking toward the very beginning on the second week of November for something slightly measurable.

Until then, get ready for wet and cold.

Deep In To Fall

Sorry for the brief hiatis. I had every intention to start writing about how we were finally in to fall and then Central Ohio had another idea. We had a couple more weeks of temps in the 70s and 80s. Not exactly ideal "Fall" weather.

I should still write about the weather, no matter how boring it is, so that's my fault. I just couldn't get in the mood to write another headline that says, "oh, sorry, fall is on hold, here's a high of 87."

But I'm back, and just in time for what I consider our third major cold front of Fall. You know my rule by now, four fronts usually gets us in to the wintry weather, and right on cue we have a shot at our first flurries with the frontal passage tonight:

Ok, it's not much, and it won't stick, but for snow lovers it's the day we wait for all year. The FIRST FLAKES! For everyone else, it's the day they dread all year.

We've already had our first freeze earlier this week, with all of Central Ohio dropping below 32. Now we're in a pattern where strong storms will be able to dive down out of Canada, in a clipper-like setup. High pressure followed by low pressure. Over and over for the extended range. But in the short term, through next week, we're looking at mostly sunny and cool.

Back to today and tonight, we will see our first high wind event of the season as a cold front blasts through and brings 40mph winds. Our whole area is under a Wind Advisory, and I think we could see wind gusts over 40mph as early as 3pm. Here's the HRRR 10m winds, which aren't very high above the ground:

Impacts
This shouldn't be a major wind event like we've seen in the past, but with a prolonged period of wind gusts above 40mph, we could see some isolated power outages. More likely we'll see some trees that are just barely beginning to turn color get stripped bare of those leaves. This could be pretty impactful for any color watchers out there. And you might want to make sure those Halloween decorations are tied down tight, or you might find them in your neighbor's tree tomorrow.

I'll be sure to update if we see any more significant impacts from this system, but otherwise expect another post next weekend!