Early look toward Halloween & a meteor shower

If you are big into meteor showers, another one is getting closer to peak. The Orionid meteor shower will peak Monday night with roughly 20 meteors per hour if you can get away from the city lights.

The one thing to remember about meteor showers is that it rarely matters which way you look, but it's more important to get away from light pollution and find the darkest skies that you can. It's not one of the best meteor showers (given that we will have some moonlight), but we do expect fairly tranquil weather and with several clear skies ahead, it may be worth venturing out.

Early look to Halloween:

Just a couple weeks to go and we are getting a pretty good idea on what kind of weather conditions will be coming through the Plains. Exact details (such as wind, humidity, clouds) are a little uncertain, but the overall pattern is suggesting that we will likely be dry AND temperatures won't be that far out of line for late October. So if everything works out according to plan, this should be a pretty good year for kids getting out for trick-or-treating.

Little, if any rain for parts of Kansas the next few weeks:

Western Kansas will likely see drought conditions expand as the setup (into early November) doesn't look that encouraging for moisture. This isn't particularly one of our wetter times of the year anyway, but models are keeping most of the rains well north or east. Gulf of Mexico moisture can be hard to come by heading into winter, so approaching weather systems from the west may not have much to work with when they pass through Kansas.

NOAA will be releasing their winter forecast today (Thursday) and we will discuss it soon. We are still looking at the clues for winter (seasonal forecasts are quite a challenge), but every year we put out a winter forecast. One thing that is a little discouraging right now is the lack of precipitation. If this trend continues, it could be a long winter.