The 614cast
Today’s tl;dr
☀️ Sunny, high in the lower to middle 80s.
Saturday Buckeye football tl;dr
🏈 3 p.m. Sunny, 84 | Kickoff Clear, 76 | 11 p.m. Clear, 66
Forecast highlights
🌡️ Weekend warmth
It’s layer season… mornings have started off feeling fairly fresh (even if they are warmer than average), but the sunshine quickly warms us up.
That’ll continue today into the weekend. Mornings start in the 50s, but highs pass 80. We’ll have hardly any clouds the next few days. As weird as this might sound, if you’re going to be out in the sun for a while, I recommend putting on sunscreen. (I’ve gotten a sunburn in October before, so I speak from experience.)
In fact, we’ll see highs in the mid-80s yet on Monday and probably around 80 on Tuesday before cooler air pushes in to finish the week. Thursday might not even get out of the 60s. 😲
Side note: Some parts of the central U.S. will face near-record to record heat today and tomorrow. A few dozen record highs are in jeopardy (and even more record warm lows).
🌧️ Next week’s rain chance is promising
The system that ushers in cooler air next week is still on track to give us rain! Odds favor the Tuesday–Wednesday period. The timing of the cold front isn’t set in stone this far out, of course, but trends have favored late Tuesday into Tuesday night for the bulk of the activity.
We shouldn’t have any concerns whether there’ll be enough moisture to fuel some rain. Dew points are dry to start the week, but south winds will push them into the 60s ahead of the front. For October, that’s somewhat humid.
You can see the drier air plow in behind the cold front, which will scour out the rain and leave us with some real fall weather to end the week.
📊 Today’s almanac
Normal low/high: 50 / 71
Record low/high: 31 (1888) / 93 (2019)
Sunrise/set: 7:30 a.m. / 7:10 p.m.
💧 Drought Monitor update
Moderate drought continues across central Ohio, with about 74% of the state in those conditions or worse. That’s down from 89% last week.
Northwest Ohio worsened into extreme drought, while rain in southern and eastern Ohio improved their situation.
Columbus’ rainfall is well over five-and-a-half inches below normal since August 1, so next week’s rain will not come close to drought-busting… or probably drought-alleviating, as it looks now. And now that it’s October, whatever rain falls is too late to have positive impacts for agriculture.
🌭 For the weather weenies
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Tracking the thirst of the atmosphere (NOAA Research)
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Imelda/Humberto satellite animation (CIRA/Bluesky)