Don't Wash Your Car

For eight straight computer model runs the GFS (and now the European ECMWF) seems to be locked in on one solution for the mid-week storm. Southeast Missouri, southern Illinois, western Kentucky, central/southern Indiana will stay on the warm side of the storm.

My attention has moved from a winter storm to more of a rain/thunderstorm threat. In fact, it is starting to look like we could have a heavy rain threat from this storm.

As earlier mentioned, the jet stream will be acting as a conveyor belt to help draw moisture up out of the Gulf of Mexico. If the models are to be believed, it is going to be very wet through the mid-Mississippi River Valley and the lower Ohio Valley.

The 18z (12pm CT) GFS puts down some impressive rainfall totals for Cape Girardeau. Below is a look at the data from this afternoon's run.


It pumps out over 2.5" of rain Wednesday through early Friday morning. I have seem some hints at even more than 3.5" of rain.

It is still early and we still have a couple of days for the models to get a better handle on what is going to happen. Things could change pretty easily in the forecast. If you plan on doing any traveling through the central part of the country for Christmas, you should keep an eye on the forecast.