2021 Drought Thread

[Chicago WX]

On 5/24/2021 at 11:26 AM, Hoosier said:

Late week looks like a better shot at some rain.  Hopefully the impressive sub 0.5" streak holds... would be a shame to lose it on a squeaker.

0.77". It's ovah.

12 hours ago, Hoosier said:

As of this writing, ORD is at 2.45" for met Spring.  A top 3 driest finish looks like a virtual lock, with a pretty decent chance to finish at #2.  #1 would take a minor miracle.

3.22" now. 2nd place gone. Thursday-Friday system may push this spring out of the top 5 possibly, according to some guidance. We'll see...

[Chicago Storm]

I wouldn’t be so sure yet.

Tonight and Thursday could still throw a wrench into things.


.

When you’re right, you’re right.


.

[Chicago Storm]

Bump.

About to roll into late May, and ORD still has yet to have a TS since mid-November of last year.


.

Streak is over.

ORD finally had a TS overnight.


.

[A-L-E-K]

fun while it lasted

[A-L-E-K]

12z guidance look solid enough, should be able to put a dent in things

[Hoosier]

5 hours ago, Chicago WX said:

0.77". It's ovah.

3.22" now. 2nd place gone. Thursday-Friday system may push this spring out of the top 5 possibly, according to some guidance. We'll see...

Lame.  You want to end these things in grand fashion.  

I am sitting on a particular futility stat that I hope I get to post in the coming days.  It will take some underperformance with the next system though.  

[Hoosier]

Overall, guidance was pretty poor on QPF/placement last night.  I'm not sure anything had as much precip as what fell in Chicago, and some models were like 0.10" or less.  In my experience you can get bigger QPF errors as you get into the warm seasons.

[A-L-E-K]

hrrr did well with overnight action

[Hoosier]

12 minutes ago, A-L-E-K said:

hrrr did well with overnight action

Funny enough, the runs earlier in the day were better.  It did pretty bad from about 23z on.

[A-L-E-K]

sounds about right for the hrrr

[A-L-E-K]

Nest would go a long way towards ending this

[RCNYILWX]

The recorded length of the less than 1/2" precip streak at ORD may have been a bit misleading. Certainly possible one of Jan 30th or Jan 31st had 0.5" liquid equivalent. MDW 3sw COOP had 0.52" on 1/30 and 0.50" on 1/31. Then ORD just missed the higher totals and liquid amounts to its east in Feb. Still an impressively long dry/quiet stretch.

 

We did correct the April CF6 to remove the erroneous TS occurrence on April 5th. Unsure why, but lightning distant in a few of the obs that day at ORD triggered the climate program to call it an on station TS occurrence. Based strictly off the Chicago obs we have, it shattered record for latest into year of a TS occurrence, with previous latest being May 3rd.

 

I'm a bit leery of putting too much stock in it as a record because especially going back to when the official site was not an airport, we don't know what counted as a TS. Is it possible that lightning out over the open waters of the lake counted as a TS? Also even with airport observers, prior to modern remote sensing of lightning and ASOS in the mid 1990s, was there subjectivity in what counted as a TS observation? What we can safely say is that this year by far had the latest first TS at ORD in the ASOS era.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Hoosier]

Not a lot of rain at ORD with the current system... only 0.24" so far.  

Today is likely the last chance of rain this month.  If 0.40" or less additional rain occurs, then the 2021 met Spring will have sole possession of 3rd driest on record.

[schoeppeya]

7 hours ago, Hoosier said:

Not a lot of rain at ORD with the current system... only 0.24" so far.  

Today is likely the last chance of rain this month.  If 0.40" or less additional rain occurs, then the 2021 met Spring will have sole possession of 3rd driest on record.

Don’t think this aged well 

[Hoosier]

38 minutes ago, schoeppeya said:

Don’t think this aged well 

ORD has missed out on the heaviest rains today.  Since I posted this morning, there has been an additional 0.25", which means that up to another 0.15" can fall and it would still be in 3rd place.  Given the current radar, I like the chances of ORD not receiving more than 0.15" additional rain, but we'll see.

[schoeppeya]

4 minutes ago, Hoosier said:

ORD has missed out on the heaviest rains today.  Since I posted this morning, there has been an additional 0.25", which means that up to another 0.15" can fall and it would still be in 3rd place.  Given the current radar, I like the chances of ORD not receiving more than 0.15" additional rain, but we'll see.

I’m very surprised the last couple hours of rain only added up to .25

ETA: looks like that was only through 6:51? Guess we will see where it shakes out!

[Hoosier]

1 minute ago, schoeppeya said:

I’m very surprised the last couple hours of rain only added up to .25

ORD is considerably nw of downtown though.

[schoeppeya]

2 minutes ago, Hoosier said:

ORD is considerably nw of downtown though.

Shows what I know about Chicago!

[Hoosier]

Rain has ended at ORD.  It appears like it will officially be the 3rd driest meteorological Spring on record for Chicago, as there is still a little wiggle room in the event of an unanticipated spit of rain in the next few days.

 

1)  2.73" - 1887

2)  3.20" - 1934

3)  3.75" - 2021 (through 8 pm CDT 5/28)

4)  3.87" - 1994

5)  4.08" - 1886

 

[Hoosier]

On 5/26/2021 at 11:02 AM, Hoosier said:

I am sitting on a particular futility stat that I hope I get to post in the coming days.  It will take some underperformance with the next system though.  

Here it is

2021 is on track to become the 3rd time for Chicago that each of the first 5 months of the year has less than 2" of precip.  The other 2 times it happened were 1989, and some year called 1934. 

Fwiw, June 1934 had 2.24" and June 1989 squeaked by at 2.01", so Chicago has never had a year when the first 6 months each had less than 2".  Something to watch I guess.

 

2021:

J:  1.95" , F:  1.25" , M:  1.25" , A:  0.71" , M:  1.79" (through 8 pm CDT 5/28)

 

1989:

J:  0.82" , F:  0.77" , M:  1.67" , A:  1.37" , M:  1.59"

 

1934:

J:  0.84" , F:  0.52" , M:  1.21" , A:  1.32" , M:  0.67"

[Hoosier]

ORD had exactly 0.50" of rain today.  Good thing that sub 0.50" streak ended the other day.  

[Kitchener poster]

0.75” fell yesterday. Very nice slow and steady. Took it all in. No runoff. 

[Hoosier]

A stretch of 80s/90s starting later next week along with minimal rain should speed up the dry out in the existing drought area.

[A-L-E-K]

Ban^

[IWXwx]

19 minutes ago, A-L-E-K said:

Ban^

Cooler by the lake

[Hoosier]

Good combo when rooting for drought

 

 

[hawkeye_wx]

It has been storming across eastern Texas for two months.

[A-L-E-K]

Feast or famine 

[IWXwx]

Feast here. I'll end up with 4.34" for the month and FWA is at 4.67", while ORD is at 1.79".

FWA at 13.75" for the year vs. 6.95" at ORD. The difference is stark.

[Harry Perry]

Looks like our only hope for rain the next couple of weeks is afternoon daytime heating type of showers/storms. Definitely feast or famine. We really need a good overnight soaker - say a pseudo stationary front with multiple rounds of convection aided by a strong LLJ. One can hope that happens at some point soon to really help our growing season this year.