Chris's Corner - Join Me at Weather Ready Fest

[Snowman99]

Looks like the GFS has around 1-2+" for immediate area..heaviest 4+ in ne MO. Euro has 4-6" across st louis area, EPS has around 3". So. It might rain. And:

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[jmg378s]

From what I can tell of the crappy UKMET charts it has heaviest rains primarily in SE MO (including St. Louis).

And speaking of the UKMET, it has been consistently on the southern edge of guidance with regards to Florence suggesting that she misses the North Atlantic trough and gets stuck under a building ridge off the East Coast. ECMWF (which has shown this idea in some previous runs) and GFS are more or less showing the same thing now too. So anything is still possible with Florence; from harmless recurve to a major affecting the US.

[BRTNWXMAN]

EURO has 6" IMBY with the remnant low tracking right up 44.

[jeffcobeeman]

I hope the vegetation and the ground soaks some of the rain up. Getting kind of tired of heavy rain and big floods multiple times a year. Hopefully since the Meramec is at or below low stage it wont get out of it's banks too badly if we get a lot of the rain.

[mchafin]

So my daughter is supposed to go on a camping trip with the Girl Scouts this weekend -- Am I too much of a Nervous Nelly to pull her back from going, with the anticipated 4-6" of rain expected Fri-Sun?

[Spaz(Wrestlerdude)]

Sept 5, 2018 8:41:06 GMT -6 mchafin said:

So my daughter is supposed to go on a camping trip with the Girl Scouts this weekend -- Am I too much of a Nervous Nelly to pull her back from going, with the anticipated 4-6" of rain expected Fri-Sun?

If u pull her 3 days early...yes. If you say you may pull her and do it Friday when forecast is a lock, no

[beaker - Dardenne Prairie, MO]

still early but with forecasts of a 5 inch nature coming up and the impending pattern of stalled cold front, im thinking qpf amts cld zoom even higher than they already have. tx needs the rain worse than we do but i wld have been happy with abt half the amt that is forecasted. there are going to be issues especially with the wild torrential downpours.

[Snowman99]

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[Labrat-O'Fallon IL]

Snowman, you are cracking me up today. That picture is something else.

[BRTNWXMAN]

GFS on board with 6"+ amounts IMBY...better start working on that Ark.

[cozpregon]

Heaviest rains 4"+ looks to be just along and left of the low. GFS is a bit south of the immediate metro... NAM a bit north. Snowman brought up the tornado chance... and if the timing is right we may see a few south & east of the track. This is the NAM Saturday afternoon as the low moves by. GFS is about 12 hours slower with the low and doesn't CAPE it up as much.

[bdgwx]

For those of you who have sump pumps make sure they are plugged in an working. You might not need it this go around, but it's better safe than sorry. 

Mine has only been used twice in my home's 20+ year history. One was the December 2015 flood and the other was the April 2017 flood.

[guyatacomputer - NE St. Peters]

I'm leaving town Friday morning heading in the general direction of Fargo. In April 2017 I made the same drive in a pouring rain most of the day that often held my speed well below 55. I'd like to avoid a repeat of that sort of drive as much as possible.

Trying to decide if I should go north 61 and go west in Iowa or Minnesota or whether I'll get less rain if I go west and turn north at KC? or am I hosed either way?

[Snowstorm920]

Its going to get moist

[Lovableweatherguy TROY,MO]

LOL

[jmg378s]

Taking a subjective blend of the 12z GFS, ECM, and UKM I'd say that WPC map is perhaps a bit too far north.

[guyfromhecker]

Heavy showers and thunderstorms continue to develop over Southern Illinois and Southeast Missouri. They appear to be moving North West

[WEAXWATCHER]

What are we looking at timeline wise? Start time for wave one anyway?

[Chris Higgins]

Sept 5, 2018 18:40:53 GMT -6 WEAXWATCHER said:

What are we looking at timeline wise? Start time for wave one anyway?

I honestly think Thursday will turn out more like your typical late summer afternoon pattern... some spot/scattered storms in the afternoon... but with quite a bit of dry time...with the front nearly stationary over central into NE Missouri...and the tropical remnants taking some time to activate...and still pretty nebulous low/mid level forcing.

That changes by Friday...and it is really the Friday into Sunday morning time frame when things will get cranking. Tomorrow/Thursday is just the warm-up act.

[Chris Higgins]

I am going steady with 2-5" but added the potential for some 6"+ totals.

I have some concerns about how the bands line up near the front. It could be that there are breaks between narrower heavy rain bands...while other bands may repeat over some of the same areas. You can even see evidence of this in some of the mesoscale QPF output. I think 2-5 gets the message across that a lot of rain is coming...and the 6"+ says "this could get even worse in spots".

[jmg378s]

Sept 5, 2018 18:40:53 GMT -6 WEAXWATCHER said:

What are we looking at timeline wise? Start time for wave one anyway?

You should expect showers or storms at any time now, but for Thursday and Friday it shouldn't be an steady all day thing and not everyone is likely get rain during this period anyway.  Friday night through Sunday morning is really the key period as it stands right now.  And when it starts raining Friday night it may not stop till Sunday.  Now it may not be heavy all the time, but I doubt if there will be much of a break.  Of course timing, coverage, and axis of heaviest rain are always subject to change this far out.

Edit: I see Chris beat me to it.  So there ya go

[mchafin]

I look forward to hearing this when it's a winter storm Chris is talking about:

"That changes by Friday...and it is really the Friday into Sunday morning time frame when things will get cranking"

[mchafin]

Daughter's camping trip postponed, fyi.

[jmg378s]

Sept 5, 2018 20:56:11 GMT -6 mchafin said:

Daughter's camping trip postponed, fyi.

A good call. 

My daughter's scout camp is next weekend.  So glad for her sake it wasn't this weekend.

[mchafin]

Funny story:

I asked my better half, and she truly is my better half, if there were contingency plans for the camping trip (it was a Girl Scouts camping outing). She didn't know what I was talking about -- yet another reminder that unless it's severe winter weather approaching, I remain pretty silent vocally about weather impacts unless those impacts are possible tornadoes (note to self: quit internalizing and speak!).

Anyway - I asked her to reach out to the troop leaders to see if they saw the forecast for 4-6" of rain and what their plan was. She heard me say "46 inches" not 4-6". I corrected the mistake with a follow-up email to the leaders and they decided to postpone. Questions I ask myself:

(I) Did they freak out at "46 inches" of rain coming and decide to call it off because my wife brought that to their attention (even though the number she gave them was WAY OFF?
(II) Did they cancel because Loufest cancelled (even though Loufest cancelled for unrelated reasons, although Loufest said in their letter that they were fearful of the lack of walk-ups making the ticket revenue smaller than needed)? OR
(III) Did they really cancel because rain all weekend would have really been:
(1) Cruddy for the young girls
(2) Dangerous if the camp was close to a stream or river (I highlighted in my email potential life-threatening sudden rises in river/stream) OR
(3) Dangerous because the girls would be sitting in tents during heavy rain and possible thunderstorms

In any event, I'm glad they cancelled because
(1) It's not smart to be out in the elements during potential torrential tropical downpours
(2) I get to spend the weekend with my daughter, not worrying about her being ok and
(3) Nobody wants to send their kid into potential danger, no matter what that danger may be

I realize this post had a lot of lists and sub-lists. I like lists.

[guyfromhecker]

Sept 5, 2018 21:55:23 GMT -6 mchafin said:

Funny story:

I asked my better half, and she truly is my better half, if there were contingency plans for the camping trip (it was a Girl Scouts camping outing). She didn't know what I was talking about -- yet another reminder that unless it's severe winter weather approaching, I remain pretty silent vocally about weather impacts unless those impacts are possible tornadoes (note to self: quit internalizing and speak!).

Anyway - I asked her to reach out to the troop leaders to see if they saw the forecast for 4-6" of rain and what their plan was. She heard me say "46 inches" not 4-6". I corrected the mistake with a follow-up email to the leaders and they decided to postpone. Questions I ask myself:

(I) Did they freak out at "46 inches" of rain coming and decide to call it off because my wife brought that to their attention (even though the number she gave them was WAY OFF?
(II) Did they cancel because Loufest cancelled (even though Loufest cancelled for unrelated reasons, although Loufest said in their letter that they were fearful of the lack of walk-ups making the ticket revenue smaller than needed)? OR
(III) Did they really cancel because rain all weekend would have really been:
(1) Cruddy for the young girls
(2) Dangerous if the camp was close to a stream or river (I highlighted in my email potential life-threatening sudden rises in river/stream) OR
(3) Dangerous because the girls would be sitting in tents during heavy rain and possible thunderstorms

In any event, I'm glad they cancelled because
(1) It's not smart to be out in the elements during potential torrential tropical downpours
(2) I get to spend the weekend with my daughter, not worrying about her being ok and
(3) Nobody wants to send their kid into potential danger, no matter what that danger may be

I realize this post had a lot of lists and sub-lists. I like lists.

You did fine. You might have wanted to mix the letters in there too.

[jmg378s]

WPC has a moderate risk of excessive rainfall for the St. Louis metro area on both day 2 and day 3.

In case you weren't aware these risk categories are a relatively new thing somewhat similar to the SPC risk categories. Moderate risk is interpreted as a 20-50% of rainfall exceeding flash flood guidance numbers within 25mi of a given point.

Currently flash flood guidance numbers are sitting very roughly around 3-3.5" of rain in a 6-hour period which is a bit higher than I typically see.

[bellevillewxguy]

Looks like the heaviest axis of rainfall is shifting farther south and is largely charted to be just south of the immediate metro with southern Illinois being favored and points east as this thing really comes together. Still looks like most will see at least a couple inches, but the 5 to 8" band is now mainly for the southeastern third of the viewing area including the southern Metro but just south of the city i.e a Salem, IL to Festus, MO line and points south. Still looks like a 3 to 4 inch event with locally up to 5" for Belleville, IL though it'll be interesting to see if the southward shift continues on the 12Z runs or if things pull back north a tad shifting the axis closer to I-44/1-64.

[STGOutdoors]

NAM and GFS are significantly further south with the heaviest axis of rain as of the 06z models.

Hope to be saying that at some point this winter with one of those words changed out!

[STGOutdoors]

Sept 6, 2018 5:55:17 GMT -6 bellevillewxguy said:

Looks like the heaviest axis of rainfall is shifting farther south and is largely charted to be just south of the immediate metro with southern Illinois being favored and points east as this thing really comes together. Still looks like most will see at least a couple inches, but the 5 to 8" band is now mainly for the southeastern third of the viewing area including the southern Metro but just south of the city i.e a Salem, IL to Festus, MO line and points south.

Beat  me by a few seconds...