The Very Long Range Outlook

Part of what we do is making extended weather outlooks. You know about the 7-day forecasts you see on the web and TV, but we do something a little different. Enhancing a technique we've used for more than 25 years, we make what we call The Hovmoller Outlook. The work that goes into them is much more than an analysis of Hovmoller diagrams, but in interviews the name stuck.

We make these outlooks for regions of the country and send them out on Tuesdays and Fridays. You can subscribe to The Hovmoller Outlook for less than $10 a month. Here's a sample:

Subscribe by going to OrrWeather.com and click on the shopping cart. We'll send you the next issue that covers your region.

Stormy Weather is Coming

Scattered high clouds will be overhead today and tomorrow. Temperatures will be nice and warm under the mostly sunny skies, reaching the 60s today and around 70 tomorrow.

A storm system working across the Southwest today and tomorrow will turn to the northeast Friday, spreading clouds up across us. Even though the sun will gradually fade away Friday, temperatures will still pop up to around 70. I should stop while I’m ahead.

But I won’t. Saturday will be mostly cloudy with a few rain showers and highs of 47-52.  We’ll have more clouds than sun on Sunday with a high of 51-55.

Oh – and there will be flurries on Tuesday, perhaps enough snow over the Bear Lodge Mountains to turn things white.

Dry Until Friday

Temperatures just before sunrise were in the 50-55 range this morning. Some places in the Black Hills saw morning lows only in the upper 60s:  Spearfish, Custer State Park and Mt. Rushmore.

A bubble of warm air is overhead and that will allow the temperature to shoot up into the 70s this morning and then level out in low 80s  this afternoon as a cold front moves through. That cold front will bring us gusty north winds to 25 mph after 2pm. Clouds will gradually thicken up this afternoon, too.

Tomorrow's temperatures will be back to near-normal with readings in around 70, then we'll be back to the upper 70s on Thursday.

The atmosphere moistens up Friday with an increase in the cloud cover and by late in the day there will be an increasing chance of rain. There will be a few showers Friday night into Saturday morning morning and then the clouds will thin out Saturday afternoon.

The sea-surface temperatures of the northeast Pacific Ocean are cooling down and will bring us a dramatic shift in weather towards the end of the month - and set us up for a colder-than-normal November, December, January and February.

Sea surface temperatures compared to normal. Blues show areas 0.5-3.0C colder than normal, yellow indicates 0.5-2.0C warmer than normal and red is more than 3C warmer than normal.

First Day of Autumn

If you have read anything I have written in the last several Septembers, I know that I make a much bigger deal of meteorological autumn than astronomical autumn. Meteorological autumn, which begins September 1 tends to follow the change in the weather much closer. But enough of that. How about today's Black Hills forecast?

The sun should peek out late this afternoon with  partly sunny skies over Rapid City by 3pm while mostly sunny skies develop over the far southwest corner of the state by 5pm. The northern Hills will remain mostly cloudy.  Highs today will range from 55-60 with readings of 64-69 at Edgemont and Ardmore.

Skies will be clear by midnight revealing a full harvest moon. Areas of fog will develop overnight but the fog will burn off by 10am tomorrow. Lows will be 36-41 with some valley frost.

A few clouds will move in from the northwest tomorrow afternoon. Highs 72-77.

The weekend will be mostly sunny with highs of 69-74 Saturday and 75-80 on Sunday.

Today is much cooler than yesterday with highs expected to between 68 and 75 and tomorrow will be cooler yet. A large amount of moisture will be coming up out of Mexico Wednesday spreading locally heavy rain across Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah.

Weather map for Thursday showing rain areas, the low and fronts.

That storm system will spread across the Great Plains on Thursday. A few areas of western and central South Dakota will see 1.5" to 2" of rain Thursday (along with highs in the 50s).

Wildfire Threat

Today's warm, dry weather will be a sharp contrast from the weekend's cool dampness. Actually, yesterday was delightful across the Black Hills where there was abundant sunshine and temperatures were in the 70s.

Hot, dry weather i s blowing in from the southwest today where readings in central Wyoming topped 90 Sunday afternoon. Our temperatures will be in the 80s today, although it will likely be in the low 90s from Edgemont to Pine Ridge. The humidity will be low, winds will be gusting to over 30 mph and those conditions elevate the fire danger to the extreme category as the grass goes through its fall drying.

A cold front will make today's heat short-lived. We'll be back into the 70s for highs tomorrow and as clouds increase and showers develop Wednesday it will only make it into the 60s.

The Future
Hurricane Igor blew past Bermuda overnight. It will head for the southern tip of Greenland and then loop back to the west to northeast Canada later this week.

The storm track will be just to our north for the next two weeks, allowing snow and cold air to build across the north half of Canada while we sit in mild air. Sub-zero temperatures will develop north of the Arctic Circle - waiting to make its first plunge towards the equator. You may be thinking about Fall coming Wednesday night. I've got a pretty good idea what the rest of Fall will be like so I am already thinking about Winter.

Here it is mid-September and the threat of severe thunderstorms continues.
Thunderstorms will develop from southeast Montana and eastern Wyoming, south to Kansas late this afternoon and evening then move to the east and northeast. The threat is mainly from large hail (up to 2.5") and wind gusts to 70 mph. The thunderstorms should develop between 3pm and 6pm and then begin to weaken toward midnight. Keep in mind that its unusual to have severe weather so late into the night in September.

Pockets of 1 to 2 inches of rain will be possible with this weather system. The bulk of the rain will fall before 6am Wednesday but showers will linger through the day, gradually becoming few and far between.

Temperatures today will warm to 75-80, cool into upper 40s tonight, and then crawl back to 57-62 tomorrow afternoon (it will be in the 50s across the Black Hills).  Readings will be to 74-79 on Thursday but only reach about 60 on Friday with mostly cloudy skies and a few showers.

I'll do some Tweets today on the severe weather. There's a lot of action going on around the country and I am following that on Facebook. You can find a link to my Facebook at OrrWeather.com.

Night time temperatures are getting cooler and cooler as nighttime lengthens. Overnight temperatures are regularly dipping into the 40s and then popping back into the 70s. That cycle will continue this week with three exceptions: today, Wednesday and Friday.

This morning's satellite image.

Today we'll see the temperature reach the 80-85 range (73-78 at the higher elevations) under mostly sunny skies. Clouds will thicken tomorrow and a few showers will move in from the southwest after 4pm. Look for slightly cooler readings tomorrow at 74-79. The showers will be more likely tomorrow night and Wednesday morning, then they will taper off Wednesday afternoon but not early enough to keep Wednesday from being a chilly day at 58-63 degrees for the highest temperature.

We'll be right back to the mid 70s Thursday but only 64-69 on Friday as clouds hover near a cold front. Hurricane Igor will miss the U.S. but be caught up in a large low over eastern Canada. The low will draw down air from the Arctic and we'll see an increasing threat of frost and freezing temperatures over the next 2 weeks. So far, it is not looking like an exceptional cool down as we head through the first month of Autumn. October may bring a couple of unusually cold days, however.

We're into the Fall roller-coaster ride of temperatures as we take wild swings from the 30s and 40s at night to being in the 80s a day or two later.
It was frosty in some areas this morning as readings dipped into the 30s at several locations across western South Dakota. It'll warm into the 70s this afternoon.

A storm system will develop over western Nebraska tomorrow. The weather will be warm and pleasant tomorrow with most of us seeing mostly sunny skies and highs in the low to mid 80s.  The clouds will thicken on Sunday as showers and thunderstorms develop over Wyoming and eastern Montana. Those showers will spread across western South Dakota late Sunday afternoon and night.

Labor Day will be a very windy day (gusting to 45mph) with morning showers -- and maybe an afternoon sprinkle.

The Rapid City area forecast --
Today: Mostly sunny. High 72 to 78.
Saturday: Mostly sunny. High 80 to 85.
Sunday: Increasing clouds. High 84 to 89.
Monday: Windy. Morning showers. High 61 to 66.
Tuesday: Partly sunny. High 70-75.

About 3 or 4 years ago, when I wrote a weekly column for the Rapid City Journal, I wrote how the drought was going to end. South Dakota's state climatologist, people at the USDA and others would go on and on about how the drought was going to last for another decade and how water levels in reservoirs and on the Missouri would take years to recover.

I have observed in years past that droughts and wet periods alike can end very quickly. I have observed that processes such as the refilling of reservoirs and natural lakes can happen very quickly. I don't need a computer model - it's all observable.

Guess what? I predicted that all of the boat docks the government built on Lake Oahe would soon be driftwood. This year Oahe is up some 20-25 feet from the peak of the drought and all of the money spent, wasted on what is not driftwood.

Pactola, which was supposed to take years to refill - according the people who supposedly know more than I - is 3.4 feet short of full as of March 6 and the snowmelt has yet to begin. Pactola recovered from a drought in the 1990s, too. The experts are surprised. I am not because I observe.

Belle Fourche - Orman Reservoir is within inches of being full. Now water is being divereted and will cause flooding as far down as the Cheyenne River.

This, of course is all good news because the drought is kaput.

But, there is bad news. Up to 9 inches of water is sitting in the snowpack in the northern Black Hills and when it melts there will be a massive amount of flooding. Spearfish, Whitewood, Sturgis, Belle Fourche and other towns will see whole sections under water. Areas downstream of Pactola - including Rapid Valley - will see flooding. It won't be pretty.

And - the Deep Underground Lab at Lead will see slow progress removing water from the old mine as water pours in a rates faster than the pumps can move it out.

But the good news: Aquifers will refill and wells will flow this year.

And, if we can get one or two more wet, heavy snows of 10 to 20 inches each, accompanied by 40 mph wind, stock dams will be in excellent shape.

Yes, dry weather after July will likely sap the moisture out of plants with shallow roots, but drought is over and once again people will be able to irrigate.