Recent rains cutting into deficit; warmer on Sunday

Through Saturday, we’ve now been hanging out in these cooler 70s for four days in a row. One of our cooler days was Friday, after seeing another good round of rain in the morning and clouds through the afternoon and evening.

Reports from nearby airports show that most of us picked up about 1″ or so from that round, with a few unlucky spots in Hastings and Kearney. As you can see from the map below, a good chunk of rain fell through Merrick, Polk, Butler and Hamilton Counties Friday morning.

Over the course of the past 6 weeks or so, we’ve really started to pick up on rainfall totals for the season, cutting into the overall deficit we were stranded in for some time. At the start of June, we were 5.23″ behind. But through July 7, we are now 3.32″ behind.

Some more cloud cover will accompany us into Sunday. Temperatures will fall to the upper 50s, before rebounding back into the 80s for the afternoon. More sunshine is expected as we round out a quiet weekend.

This will not last for long, though, as we start talks of Monday. As of Saturday, there’s a Slight (Level 2 of 5) risk for much of Nebraska for Monday afternoon and evening’s next storm chances. To see this level of risk three days out, there’s some more confidence with this event. We’ll be monitoring for developments in the days to come.

Right now, even a few days out, models are showing a round of storms expanding through eastern Nebraska by the afternoon, heading toward Lincoln by the early evening.

Later on, another round of storms is possible through the Grand Island-Kearney-Lexington branch of I-80 through Monday night. This will all move southward and be done before midnight. Scattered storms and showers will be possible elsewhere, too, hence the bigger area under a Slight risk.

The outlook heading into the rest of our 10-day outlook seems promising for cooler weather sticking around. The Climate Prediction Center encircles much of Nebraska with better chances for cool temperatures July 14-18.

Monday will be our next possible storm chance, then again by Tuesday into Wednesday. But heading into next week, temperatures will be warming back into the 90s.

Meteorologist Jessica Blum 
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