We dodged one bullet

But there may be another one left in Ma Nature's pistol.

We had some pretty terrific thunderstorms through here last night and early this morning, but the worst of the weather stayed south of here--and all we got through the day today was a few sprinkles and some drizzle. The latest reading on the local river gauge seems to indicate that it may already have crested--at a little over seven feet, or well below flood stage which is 10 feet.

That said, however, we still got quite a bit of rain yesterday: 1.7 inches officially at the university for the 24 hours ending at 7 a.m. today, and probably at least 2.5 inches at my place, around 10 miles further northward and eastward from there. That puts our monthly total at something over 5 inches, whereas around 4.45 is about normal, if I'm remembering the data correctly. The radar looks fairly quiet tonight, except for a big system that looks to be firing up in central Iowa and which may head our way tonight.

Basically, the problem is that this frontal boundary is going to hang out right in our back yard for pretty much the rest of this week. And every little disturbance that comes riding it from west to east is going to drag a little more rain over our sodden soil. The models all say that just about everywhere in the northern Illinois forecast area should get at least 3 inches of additional rain from now through Saturday...and some places could get upwards of 6 more inches. It isn't going to help that somewhere by the end of the week we should be saying hello to what's left of what used to be Tropical Storm Erin.

And I'm still on deadline, trying to finish a paper that's nearly a year overdue before the start of the fall semester on Monday. It didn't help any that I lost all of Friday to a late-summer cold (or else a wicked nasty allergy attack that masqueraded as one). I literally had trouble getting my eyes to focus properly, they were so gummed up. But I'm plugging along in the evenings, and hoping to get the damn thing finished and polished in time for our Friday welcome-back luncheon. Ergo, blogging will probably be light this week--not like that's anything new around these parts lately, I'm sorry to say.

Comments

[Incertus (Brian)]

Even though Dean has passed well south of us, there's a beauty only known as Invest 92L out in the ocean, and it has its eyes on us for the moment. Here's hoping something pushes it back out into the Atlantic.