Highs today ran 77-87 with very low dew points in the 30s & 40s leading to relative humidity levels as low as 19% & winds gusting up to 31 mph.
This led to quite an elevated field & brush fire danger today.
There will not be nearly as much wind tomorrow (south to southwest 2-5 mph) & it will be a hair cooler. Instead of 77-87 (84 Greater Lafayette) over the area, highs of 73-80 are likely (77 Greater Lafayette).
Expect sunny skies with very dry air (dew points 30s to 40), resulting in still elevated field & brush fire danger. This, after morning lows of 42-48 over the viewing area (47 Greater Lafayette).
Friday looks windy & very warm with near record warmth in parts of the area. Southwest winds may gust 30-40 mph with sunny skies. This, combined with dew points in the 30s to 40s (very dry air) with expanding drought, means quite high field & brush fire danger.
Highs of 81-87 are likely (85 Greater Lafayette). The record high for the date for Greater Lafayette (1879-present) is 88 set in 1997.
Smoke will be on the increase in the area Friday, but an especially thick layer of smoke may move into our northern counties Friday afternoon, dimming the sun.
This is way I went for highs more like 81-82 there & then went for more like 85-87 in the south (where smoke will be thinner).
This smoke will be thousands of feet up, so it won't cause air quality issues here, but the dry, dusty air will.
The smokiness may continue through the weekend, in varying density, through the weekend to Monday.
However, cloudiness from Hurricane Delta will turn skies partly to even mostly cloudy Saturday & part of Sunday with highs in the upper 70s to lower 80s.
Saturday looks breezy from the south & southwest at 15-26 mph, while Sunday features east-southeast winds at 9-17 mph.
At this point, the trend is to still keep the rain from Delta south & southeast of our area, but the leading edge may get as close as areas just south of I-70.
We will monitor close though.
It looks warm Monday to Tuesday, but it sure looks like any showers/storms will struggle Tuesday (or possible late Monday or Monday night as some model data suggests). I have dropped the coverage down from 45% yesterday to 40% today & now 35% tonight.
There looks to be a real lack of good low-level moisture return from the Gulf of Mexico in the wake of Hurricane Delta gutting the flow northward. A tongue may exist from southeast Texas to Iowa, which will help some storms there (a narrow corridor of MARGINAL to SLIGHT RISK for severe is likely). However, for us, it trending towards a lack of much CAPE at all & a rather dry airmass pretty deep into the troposphere.
Brief cool shot should follow for a day or two with highs in the 60s & lows in the 30s & 40s.
However, strong southwest winds should return rapidly around Friday, October 16 with highs surging to the 70s with the field & brush fire danger going up substantially.
It is going to take a long time to get any low-level moisture & instability into our area. Even well after Delta, it appears that additional tropical activity may occur in Southeast, resulting the moisture getting tied up there rather than flowing freely northward.
Even with strong cold front around October 20-21 cooling us from near 80 to 60s with lows in the 30s, rainfall coverage looks very low at 20-25% at this point.
Another passes around October 24 with another surge of 70s, but that looks moisture-starved as well. We may see enough with the ascent for 30% coverage of showers & storms.
It may very well take a system around Halloween & another around November 5 to really bring more widespread showers & storms to the area with overall above normal temperatures.
Some frost & light freezing will occur in a few occurrences, however, there is no sign of a hard, completely-killing freeze (widespread temperatures below 28 area-wide) through November 6.
