Main Threats
Today: ponding of water on roadways due to ground saturation. Drive careful.
Summary
Most of the heavier rain has lifted north of us this morning, leaving us with scattered showers across the plateau. These won’t add up to a whole lot today, so I don’t foresee any major flooding issues.
Then….
The sun comes out tomorrow!!! I hope you’ll recognize it. That dry stretch of weather will stay with us through at least Sunday. We may see an isolated shower Friday afternoon and again on Monday, but I just couldn’t bring myself to putting a raindrop on either day. We need to dry out!
Temps will be about average for this time of year. A week or so ago it had looked like we would see highs in the 60s, but the front isn’t going to get far enough south of us to let that much of a Canadian air mass invade. Still, our afternoons will be pleasant, with low humidity. The nights will be quite comfortable and cool, as well.
Since Friday, many of us have picked up several inches of rain. I’ve collected 8.6″ at my house in Rinnie since it started raining Friday. Many other locations around the county have picked up 4-6 inches of rain. We’ve picked up 7.41 inches here at Trade-A-Plane for the month of September. Our average rainfall for September is 3.5-4 inches.
Below is a map from the NWS showing estimated rainfall since Friday. Rinnie should be a darker shade of red.
The heaviest rain today will be just to our east, where the front is stalling out. You can see the flash flood watches for the counties shaded in dark green.
Tropics
We’re still watching Tropical Storm Kirk in the southern Atlantic. The storm has maximum sustained winds of 50 mph. The storm is tracking westward, toward the Caribbean. Currently, models show this system weakening as it nears Haiti, but we’ll have to keep an eye on it. We always watch storms that move into the Caribbean this time of year. 
We still have the remnants of Leslie way out in the Atlantic. The storm will likely reorganize today into a storm but it is no threat to any land.
Records
It was rainy around here on this day in 2002. The remnants of Tropical Storm Isidore moved into Middle Tennessee in the overnight hours. Numerous locations around the mid state had 5-8 inches of rain. The bulk of the rainfall fell west of the plateau, but we still had a couple inches or so of rain.
On this day in 1959 a very strong tornado struck Hollow, Oklahoma. The powerful tornado was 440 yards wide and traveled 20 miles. The good thing about this tornado was that it moved very, very slowly and was described as producing a tremendously loud warning roar. As a result, not one single person was killed.
Finally, on this day in 1987 the weather at Mount Washington, New Hampshire was especially crazy. Their weather is notorious for being some of the wildest in the country. On September 27, 1987 the base of the mountain enjoyed sunny skies and temperatures in the 70s; the perfect fall day. Meanwhile, the top of the mountain was cloudy and 13 degrees. Snow accumulated to nearly five inches, as winds gusted to 99 mph.
Which would you choose? I’ll take snow any day! 🙂
News
The tornado warning Monday night for Cannon County turned out to be an EF-0. I may have told you all that but I can’t remember. The brief twister destroyed a barn and blew some shingles off the roof of a house.
There were reports of another tornado Tuesday night in the Muddy Pond area of Fentress County. The NWS is supposed to have done a storm survey on that one but I can’t find anything this morning. I’ll let you know as soon as I find out something. If that was a tornado, it had no warning. Some weak tornadoes occur under the radar beam, especially in areas like the plateau. The radar beam is up at about 5,000 feet by the time it reaches us from Nashville. A lot can happen between here and 5,000 feet! Heck, I’ve even seen the NWS in Norman Oklahoma miss tornado warnings. It just happens sometimes.
I’ll let you know when I hear something from the NWS about this Muddy Pond storm.
Our front is filtering in colder air to the country. Freeze watches cover nearly all of North Dakota for tonight.
You all have a great day and try to stay dry for one more day!