August or October?

How about a little of both?  Just depends where you fancy your wx tastes this glorious October morn!  How about a tropical menace approaching the central Gulf coast?  Or a raging blizzard in the northern plains?  Not feisty enough?  Does the thrill of tornado chasing catch your fancy?  Well, that could be your Saturday in the Mississippi Valley.  Personally, for now anyway, I prefer this late season taste of summer!  Look at these current temps...

And the current dew points to accompany this taste of late summer here in the Mid-Atlantic & Miss Valley.

However, upon a wider view, you can clearly note the advancing cold season as noted in the 24 hr temp change over the inter-mountain region of the US.

A very large, deep and powerful mid-latitude cyclone is advecting this taste of early winter south and east as seen on the early Saturday surface map...

As this front pushed into the warmer and much more unstable air mass ahead of it in the mid Missouri and upper Miss Valley late Friday, nasty storms developed producing numerous supercell thunderstorms and tornado formation.  Here are the preliminary reports from yesterday...

Note the correlation of the front, the 24 hour temp change, and the severe reports!  North and west of the storm's center, early winter is being manifested in the form of a fall blizzard.  This is a rather common event for the northern plains in the transition seasons as the air masses battle for control for their representative season!  How about waking to the the potential of 12-18" of windswept whiteness?  That's what the NAM says should occur!

And the wx system to ultimately affect our region looks rather innocuous in this IR satellite pic of the nation this Saturday morning.  Aw, but, great things come in small packages...and look at that mesoscale system we call a tropical storm in the Gulf.

TS Karen will slowly meander with an ever so slightly increased strength prior to making landfall in the Delta Blues country.  Technically, the center may stay just far enough offshore that it really never makes "landfall".  And for what it's worth, there's not too much land in that part of LA from what I observed anyway...but Karen's effects will be felt especially in the heart of SEC Country later Saturday into Sunday.  Here is the NWS official prog for early Tuesday as the remnant low pressure becomes absorbed in the approaching cold front from the center portion of the continent.  In the wake of Karen, high pressure will slide SE into the deep south.

A week from now, the 2 highs in the map above will join forces and ridge another spell of beautiful early fall wx right over PA!  Yes, the windows will be open next Friday guys and it will actually be more comfortable as opposed to the what felt like the 1st week of the season last evening!

Here is the WPC's official QPF forecast for the next 5 days.  I've seen these scenarios numerous times over the years and I just have a "gut feeling" that an easy 2-3" rainstorm is in store for us starting as showers sometime Monday and falling quite heavily overnight into early Tuesday morning.  Where the heaviest bands of precip set up is any body's guess right now, but the Piedmont of PA often gets soaked with these joining forces of the north country and tropics.

By the way...and sorry I digress...but go Bucs!

OK...'nuff said...gotta go prepare for my Saturday and wake up at PF.  There are so many potential tunes to leave you with but since I mentioned the "North Country" just above, I'll leave you with one of my wife's favs...Johnny Cash coupled with Bob Dylan...I hope you enjoy as much as she!

And enjoy your week's end!

Smitty

AA:  Heavy rain Monday night (2-3" possibly).  Lawn mowing warning for later next week!