Weather Underground is showing a high of 87 next Wednesday and 82 on Thursday. Who really knows, that is 8 or 9 days from now. A lot of things could change between now and then.

Channel 9 last night said there was a high of 76 in the middle of next week, with a moderate low chance of rain. Channel 5, our more moderate channel said 86 I think. I didn't even check Channel 4. I'm sure they were predicting ICEMAGGEDAN or somesuch :)

Yesterday was so awful, 76 sounded heavenly.

Lisa

They still have 76 on their forecast.

Here is a link that might be useful: News9-OKC

Accuweather's forecast must feed right off the models--they have us at 78 Wed and 81 Thurs. I missed the news forecast yesterday and this morning so don't know if our local meteorologists are buying into it yet.

I hope its true. I don't remember the last time we got such a pleasant break in the middle of July---it has been years! If we get that cool weather, I'll be out in the garden weeding and pruning all day long. It is too hot to spend time out there weeding now.

Just imagine how disappointed we all will be if this forecast doesn't pan out now that they've gotten our hopes up.

I bought a package of Bloom Booster yesterday. My fruit set has not been good, So I feel it is time to give this stuff a shoot. I have tried it once before, last year I believe, not sure how much it helped. We got a nice rain last night and with the cooler weather coming it my be my last chance to try it this year.

The rain gauge had 3.5" this morning. I am not sure accurate it is, but a nice rain anyway.

Larry

Larry, congrats on the rain! We haven't received any moisture lately and none is in the immediate forecast. They are saying the "summer vortex" is arriving and show three days next week that will be 97, 98, and 99. Not looking forward to that at all. The weeds in our pastures are starting to look really dessicated and grey.

Are the melons still looking good?

Mary

Can't spell.....

This post was edited by gmatx on Thu, Jul 10, 14 at 11:33

Mary, yes, the melons look good. The rain sort of beat the plants down on my Sugarbabies and I can stand in one spot and see 10 melons. When I walk around the bed I can count at least 15. The cantaloupes are smaller and the plants taller so I cant see as many of them.

We have more rain forecasted, so I m not sure what to do with the Bloom Booster I bought. I don't know if any is supposed to remain on the plant after it is sprayed or if it is washed off the plant and into the soil will still do as much good.

I would not be happy about the hot weather either, we have not had a lot of days over 90 yet, but I expect that will change soon.

Larry

One local station that strictly uses one model does not have a cool-down, but three other sources have it for the 3rd day in a row.

I hope the Euro model is the one with the cool-down. The NWS has us with lower than normal temps and slightly higher than normal precip chances for days 6-14.

Congrats, Larry. I've lost everything but the pumpkins and those in hugel-kulture bed.. just zukes and a gourd plant. Even the sunflowers are dying. I certainly learned a great deal about where to plant and when.

Everything could use a break. I'm at the precipice of ceasing irrigation which is meager, at present.

I had unexpected rain last night. 2.5 when I left, so probably close to 2.75 total. I had NO clue we were expecting rain. Grateful though, because with the restricted days on watering, it is hard to get it all in.

Lisa, I was waiting for you to come on here and tell me your rain gauge was overflowing. I guess it isn't that kind of year.

Y'all enjoy your rain today.

We have a chance of rain this afternoon/tonight, but I'm not holding my breath and waiting for it to fall. I've got a soaker hose watering the watermelons and muskmelons right now. They were too dry to ignore and I didn't want to get blossom end rot on the fruit by letting them get too dry. It's a great melon year, so far, with dozens of them forming and we've already harvested from the first watermelon plant that set fruit, so I don't want to risk letting the melons get too dry.

On the noon news, our local TV met didn't even mention next week's cooldown, so I guess he isn't on board with what the models are showing.....yet.

Dawn

Gasp........at least one of our weather stations is showing that next Wednesday we may get up to only 77! That's right - not a typo. Now, on top of that we will also have a chance of widely scattered showers. I hope this will happen, but I really don't look good with blue skin tone, so I will not be holding my breath.

Mary

Mary, Your forecast looks better than ours. Maybe we are too far south. Our forecast highs for the next 7 days, from tonight's local news, ending with Wed, are: 95-97-99-100-102-101-90. So, certainly 90 would be much nicer than 101 or 102, but I'd rather have your 77.

We'll have to wait a week to see if any of this big cool-down materializes.

Dawn

Every station and website is now predicting highs below 90 next week with chances of rain.

Even better, we got half an inch of rain today at the farm, and may get close to an inch at home this morning.

Our farm has not had even close to the average rain total for ANY month this year, so it is sooooo dry there.

As I type this the rain is the heaviest I have seen all year here, so I am Happy! Happy! Happy!

Congrats Scottokla! Enjoy the rain for the rest of us.

Mary

Aaron Tuttle (on FB) said yesterday

Super long range outlook...Summer to Winter: Flip a coin but a lot of model ensembles are painting a cooler rest of the summer for us after this mini heat wave coming up this weekend into early next week. The weak El Nino that developed is almost dead, hanging on by a thread at this point, so don't expect a miraculous influence from that entity. Precip should remain near normal for summer which isn't much. However, indices are supporting a much colder and wetter winter than last year around the S Plains. We shall see...

Yay Scott! I hope you get lots of lovely rain.

Yesterday someone posted the GFS for 7/16/14 on Dr. Master's blog at Wunderground and it showed the cold front dipping down pretty far south. So, I haven't seen the Euro yet, but the GFS looks good.

So far, it hasn't been nearly as hot this summer as it has been the last few years, and I am hoping that holds true for the rest of the year. I'd love to have a summer when our hottest day was only 103 or 105 instead of 110 or 115.

Despite all the rain we have received in the last 6 or 7 weeks, we remain in Extreme Drought and our soil is very dry and trees continue to die. If we could get halfway-decent rain a couple of times a month, maybe we'll be able to avoid going into Exceptional Drought. Also, when it is cooler like it has been for much of this summer, the drought doesn't seem quite as bad.

I have found it quite bizarre how El Nino was ramping up and then began collapsing, but I kind of expected it. When everyone starts getting exciting about an El Nino's development and talking about it, Murphy's Law dictates that the El Nino is going to evaporate.

Congratulations, Scott. It's about time for you.

A colder wetter winter would be a blessing after all the rains this summer. One can hope.

A half inch is not enough at the farm to reach the tree roots, but it will green the grass and keep the sod temp down for a week which helps the trees a bit. At the house we are in great shape now, and it has been a great year as a whole here.

At this point we have had enough rain and cool weather that it is almost impossible to get an extended extreme heat wave this summer. Even if it dries out and heats up it will take until August for most of us to be dry enough to reach much over 100.

I look at the weather through the eyes of my trees, so I want it totally dry and sunny every day but with really heavy rain once a month. Nothing worse for pecan trees than lots of disease-causing light rains in the evening in the summer. A lot of those and it will destroy the current and next year crop both.

Things are looking really good for most of us in thiis area of the state, and in the northwest and southeast parts also.

Well this has made the top story on the Drudge Report. The headline says 'Winter Blast in July'.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2014/07/10/poor-mans-polar-vortex-to-make-shocking-summer-return-in-eastern-u-s-next-week/

They are calling it a 'Polar Vortex'. Seems like any time we have unseasonably cool weather they are going to call it a 'Polar Vortex' from now on. Whatever.

Here is a link that might be useful: Poor man’s polar vortex to make shocking summer return in eastern U.S. next week

Channel 9 weather guy just said that they are expecting record LOW temps, both daytime highs and nighttime lows next week.

My one local station that has predicted the cool-down since Tuesday still has the same numbers predicted, but all the other stations have gone past that and are even cooler. We will have lows of 50 and highs of 80 if it holds.

It is a family tradition for me to make the kids a big batch of fudge the first day in the fall we get below 50 for a low temp. Fudge in July???

LOL Scott @ Fudge in July

We cooled down quite a bit yesterday and yesterday eve. We were scrambling to turn off the fans this morning after waking.

The remainder of my green tomatoes took advantage of the cooler temps and I harvested at least a dozen blushing this morning.

I think Scott should make all of us fudge :) (Scott, that is a neat tradition...I love to hear what different traditions families have.)

Lisa

Our local TV met now is discussing the coming of the Canadian cold air next week, although we still won't cool down as much as those of you further north. I think for us it will be highs in low to mid-80s and lows in mid-60s. I guess Scott wouldn't be making fudge if he lived down here.

He did say all the models have come into agreement, so that's a good sign I guess.

During the weather portion of the evening news, he also warned those of us down here along the Red River that we will likely face our hottest day of the year right before the cold front comes because of compressional heating. I think we've seen this sort of heating before, and Scott told me the first time it happened that all the heat being pushed ahead of a cold front "piled up" over us. I'd like to see that heat piling up, but I guess it is invisible...but you sure can feel it.

I read this post when Scott first made it. I've been busy and hadn't been able to listen to Don Day for a couple of days. I don't put a lot of trust in any forecast for this area until I compare it with his. The last two days I've heard his and it agrees a lot with the NWS and the others I watch some. He seems to think our rain chances maybe a little better than the NWS is saying. The NWS is saying our low will be 58 I believe Wed night. Of course Don's forecast is for SE CO and the Arkansas River Valley in that area. He is talking low to mid 50's for part of that area. We need the rain but have had a much better year than the previous 5 up till this point. We had two days this week over 100. I'm heading to Leedey for 3 days. They are saying two of them could be over 100 while I've there. Today we hit 95 although 97 was predicted. So the gradual cooldown has begun here.

Scott glad to hear your getting some rain. I hope it falls where it benefits the trees.

Dawn was wondering if you had received much if any rain. I visit a Hereford site some and the admin is from Wichita Falls, TX. He posted the drought index and they are D4. We got changed to D3 after the last round of rains but won't stay there long unless more comes soon.

Hope everyone gets to enjoy cooler temps and rain next week.

Jay,

Hereford? Hereford Texas? That's quite a long drive. Does it even rain there? (Just teasing. I think they might get more rain in an average year than you get in SW KS.) If they are still in D-4, it must have looked pretty bad out there? I just hate that for all the ranchers and farmers.

We got some rain in June, and about 1.5" so far in July, and we're still in D-3 but it seems that we keep getting enough rain once or twice a month to keep us from progressing to D-4, so at least there's that. : )

Our rainfall total at our house is a little under 12" for the year. Average rainfall through the end of June would be about 18" and through the end of July would be about 20" (and 38"-42" for the year, with larger total in eastern end of county and smaller one for western end). Actually, the NWS Cooperative Weather Observer near us has recorded only 11.29" but we've gotten more rain than him a couple of times although less than the mesonet station has recorded at Burneyville. Rain in our county has been really erratic this year, with rainfall totals all over the place depending on who you talk to, so I guess we've had lots of patchy rain and it has been hit and miss for various folks. A friend of ours who ranches out in far western Love County got 4.5" in June from storms that gave us 3.5". I confess I was green with envy when he said he got 4.5", but was pleased as could be for him and his cattle. He said it really put a lot of water back in his stock tanks so he sounded really relieved about that.

We almost never make it into D-4 and, when we do, we don't stay there long (unlike your long-parched county that seems like it has been in D-4 for most of the years I've known you). Even in a bad year, we usually don't make it into D-3 until late July and this year we hit it in May, which kinda had me wishing I hadn't even bothered planting a garden. The garden has produced well, with lots of irrigation, so at least the huge hordes of grasshoppers are eating well. I'm trying to find some positives here.....though I don't really think happy grasshoppers are a good thing.

Even though I complain about constantly having to water, I don't imagine I'll stop doing it. Since we were in drought when I was starting seeds, I planned and sowed seeds accordingly and only planted about 50% of what I normally would. That has meant less to irrigate and it probably was a good decision.

I'm looking forward to next week. I think that no matter how much it does or doesn't cool off or does or doesn't rain, at least we will get something different for a few days. I'd love to be able to stay outside all day. As it is, I've been trying to make it inside before the high hits 95, and some days this week, it has hit 92-95 before noon. That makes my workday outside really brief.

I'm also hoping that the mid-summer cool spell means that maybe the rest of the summer will remain more moderate and maybe, just maybe, we won't be roasting hot in August.

We have had a few grass fires, but at least in our part of the county, they have been small lately and easily controlled and extinguished. That's a really good sign. We still look pretty green in general from the June and July rain.....at least from a distance. But if you stop and stare at a green spot, you can see it is starting to brown out and lose the pretty green that looked so good after the rain fell. Maybe if this cool-down brings good rainfall, we'll green back up.

Dawn

Even if it doesn't get as cool as predicted, it still should be a great break from the heat. When I checked earlier today it seemed this system would benefit the western edge of the plains with precip and down into Texas, moreso than us up here. Still a long way out. At least there is a decent chance!

Tomorrow I start the process of using our remaining water to help out the smaller trees.

Dawn,

Hereford, TX is just 35 miles from us - next county over. And yes, this portion of the TX Panhandle was classified D4 up until May 27 when we went down one notch to D3. Now you know why I jump up and down when we get even just a few drops and truly celebrate when we get enough moisture (like the last 2 months) where the pastures have some weed/grass growth and I don't have to put out round bales for the Beefalos.

Here's hoping and praying that the weather forecast is correct as we have a 30-50 percent chance of rain for several days next week. Hope everyone gets some beneficial rainfall.

Mary

Scott, If I believed the 7-day QPF was correct and wouldn't change, I'd be deliriously happy and jumping up and down with excitement. Since we seldom get what it forecasts for us, I'll just say I am cautiously optimistic, and Tim is still saying he doesn't believe it.

Mary, Oh, you are so far west---no wonder y'all stay so dry. I hope you get every drop of rain forecast to fall and then get more on top of that.

We are in a grasslands area that used to get really decent rain---annual rainfall of 38-42" is nothing to sneeze at, right? In recent years, though, the rainfall generally has been far less than average, or we have many, many dry consecutive months and then one month with 6 or 8 or 12" that makes the whole year end up looking like an average year, but it didn't feel like an average year in all those below-average months. That one wet month can make a whole year look far better on paper than it actually was.

Many of the ranchers around us have culled and culled and culled and reduced their herds, spent a lot more money on hay, leased additional pastures, put in new, bigger and deeper ponds (sometimes with conservation grants) etc., and still they are just hanging on waiting for better weather to return so they can rebuild their herds. There's been so many rough years for the ranchers and even worse years for the farmers that I figure a better year has to come soon.

Now, I'll link the 7-day QPF and everyone can see what it is forecasting. If we were to get only half of what it says we will, I'd be pretty happy.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful:

Its hot here, I am looking forward for a cool down.

Dawn, you are talking it being dry, I just came in from the garden, I had planned on planting some cabbage seeds ( I know there are a 100 reasons not to) and the garden was too wet. Its too hot to be out side, but a guy can only take so much sitting around.

Larry

I heard it on the Florida weather. They said we probably won't get it. I wouldn't mind! 90-94 here daily.

"A colder wetter winter would be a blessing " Last year winter didn't end til May. UGH. I'm going to visit Oakie, who has the best report.

Larry, See there...that is the basic difference between your place and mine. We don't get enough rain here most of the time and y'all get too much rain there most of the time.

It is too hot to be outside and I cannot believe you were out in it. As wet as y'all have been, I bet your heat index was just awful today. The high temperature was 105 at our house today, but only 98, I think, at our Mesonet station, which routinely is 5 or more degrees cooler than us, night and day, in the summer. Our relative humidity bottomed out around 16% and we had a moderate wind out of the southwest, so everything just roasted in the sun and wilted. I had plants wilting by 10 or 11 a.m. If rain wasn't likely for the middle of next week, I'd feel like giving up on the poor garden. I'll watch it very carefully tonight to make sure that everything that wilted in the hot sun perks back up as the sun goes down and we cool off. We had one grass fire (so far today) and I felt bad for the firefighters out there in this heat.

Zackey, I am sorry this cold front won't come far enough south to reach you. I am really looking forward to 2 or 3 cooler days, and rain would be even better.

OldFixer, I'm not hoping for a colder winter, but I'd like a wetter one. We barely had any rain at all from Jan-May. I'd like a warm and wet winter, so we'll probably have a cold and dry one.

Dawn

Dawn I've been gone for several days and hadn't had a chance to read the site. No not Hereford, TX but a Hereford cattle site I frequent. I do know Hereford, Tx fairly well. Have a cousin who lives there and my Dad lived in Dimmitt, TX when he passed away so made several trips down there.

Jay, That's funny. A Hereford cattle sale never entered my mind. All I could picture was you making that long drive across the TX panhandle.

I am still patiently waiting for rain. We have cooled down some. We only hit 92 degrees here today. It felt like May instead of July. I was in the kitchen all day canning, but Tim mowed and did other yard work in much milder conditions that we normally have at this time of the year.

Now that I am more or less caught up on canning, I hope to be able to spend most of tomorrow out working in the garden.

Dawn

I arrived home to water everywhere. From Sunday night through last evening we received 1.25 inches. So thankful for every drop. They are now saying the cooldown won't last as long. Was only in the 70's today. That was nice. Some of the grass was turning blue down at Leedey. But there has been lots of grass grown. Hopefully they along with everyone else will receive some more. They are saying we have a very good chance tomorrow for more. My garden has started to take off. My Sweet potatoes are a puzzle. I purchased some slips and started some of my own. Those I started even those I transplanted in the heat 8 days ago and put straw over have just exploded. Those I purchased have lived but only a few have really took off. Not sure why. They have been in the ground around 5 weeks. But overall everything in the garden looks good. Now if the rain will keep coming it should be a great year.

Yay! Rain! I hope it keeps falling.

So far we haven't cooled off as much as they said. They forecasted mid-80s and today it hit 92 at our house, but then on Sunday, it was 107....so in that sense, 92 is a huge improvement. This evening it definitely felt cooler around sunset so maybe the cool air finally just made it this far south.

Jay, I wonder if the ones you purchased had been exposed to really cool temperatures before you bought them? That's about the only thing I can think of that makes sweet potatoes stall. Well, or maybe voles or something are nibbling on their roots.

Now, don't you get greedy and start expecting for the rain to fall regularly like clockwork, because you not that's never going to happen.

I'm glad your garden looks good. I think that mine looks horrible----tooheat-stressed and drought-stressed and really besieged by spider mites----and definitely not as pretty as it usually looks. Other people, though, think it looks fine, so maybe I'm being too picky.

I'm just about through canning tomatoes. I have maybe 4 or 5 more batches of pasta sauce, pizza sauce and chili base to make and then I'll call it a day. Today I got caught up on all the ripe tomatoes that were piled up around the house and canned almost all of them, just leaving a handful on the kitchen counter for us to eat this week. Tomorrow I'll start canning jalapenos. I've put up about 275 pints of tomatoes in various forms, which also means that I've started yanking out plants that are pretty much through producing since it isn't like I want to keep babying them along in drought so I can do even more canning. I'll leave just enough plants in the ground that we'll have a steady supply for fresh eating. I do have around 200 tomatoes (not including cherry tomatoes) lined up on the plant shelf in Tim's office, but I just picked them at breaker stage yesterday, so they'll need a few days to color up, and then I will be able to finish those last few tomato-canning projects.

All the hot season stuff is starting to produce well now and I am happy with how well the garden is doing. If the rain misses us this week, though, I'll be really unhappy because the soil remains pitifully dry. It seems like all I do is harvest and irrigate and harvest and irrigate and harvest and irrigate. Of course, without the irrigation, there wouldn't be much of a harvest.

We are getting tons and tons of birds at our bird feeders, birdbaths and watering pans---including some types of birds we never see here, and they all are hungry and thirsty. It isn't as bad as 2011 was, but you definitely can tell the wildlife aren't finding enough to eat this year.

We have had a potato bug-eating turtle in our garden for years but this year there were no CPBs and the turtle was not happy. Yesterday it was following me around the garden, so I started tossing cherry tomatoes to it. It would eat one and follow me down the pathway and I'd give it another one. It is pretty used to me being out there but it never has followed me up and down the paths like that. I hope I am not creating a monster by giving it tomatoes. It does help itself to a low-hanging tomato every now and then, which I tolerate, since it otherwise eats a lot of insects.

Dawn

Hit the tomatoes about two weeks ago with the Green Light Super Bloom. WHOA! They really responded. Hit them again this evening.

Feels like October here. I'll take it.

Perfect day today.

I predict Dawn will get two plus inches Thursday. It is set up as perfectly as possible for you Dawn.

We are on the edge of the forecasted precip. Nothing 100 miles north, 4 inches 100 miles south. We really need more than an inch, but I won't be greedy.

It was great temp wise here today. I had a lot of errands to run and with no ac it can be miserable but today was pleasant and breezy.
Yesterday We had rain. over an inch in town less here. Cant wait to see what tomorrow is like, will be running in Amarillo. Hope y'all get the cool rain too.
kim

Scott, I sure hope you are right. We are just so desperately dry here. Tim mowed yesterday and now things look really bad with all the lovely green cut off

I harvested all the tomato fruit that was breaking color on Monday, and then went out today and harvested half as many as we picked on Monday. I am trying to get every tomato possible off the plants and out of the garden before it rains. (I'd pick them green if it wouldn't ruin the flavor.) The last thing I want is for tomatoes to split or burst open if we get heavy rainfall, or for the rainfall to dilute their flavor. So, I'm kinda believing we will get that rain or I wouldn't be worried about the tomatoes.

I picked peppers yesterday and southern peas today. I need to go back outside and harvest melons, cucumbers and squash before the rain gets here.

I hope tomorrow that it is raining all day and I am stuck inside and can't even go out to the garden. That's the sort of day we need---one where it just rains and rains and rains.

Yesterday got too hot and humid to feel perfect, but today is pretty perfect. It won't be perfect, though, until rain starts falling.

Kim, Glad you had a great day like that. Sometimes all we need is a couple of nice, cool, rainy days in the middle of July to convince us that we (and our gardens) just might survive the long hot summer after all.

If we could get a couple of inches of rain this week, I think that would help carry the garden for a couple more weeks.

The downside to rain, of course, is mosquitoes. We haven't had much mosquito trouble in July at all, and only had mosquitoes around for a few days after the last big rainfall in June. I don't miss them at all when they aren't here.

Dawn

On the plus side, the models appear to have the precip slightly more north than they did this morning. On the negative side we haven't had anything yet.

The NWS still has most of the state at 2+ inches and a big chunk at 4 inches in the next 36 hours. So much depends on the exact position of the front and low pressure movement over night. Some of us will be very happy and some will be very unhappy tomorrow at this time. I love you guys, but I hope I am the happy one!

I went over ten inches for the year this evening and it is still raining. An inch and still raining. I'm heading to bed and will let the sound of rain drops put me to sleep.

Jay,

If the rain doesn't start falling more heavily down here, you're going to have a higher year-to-date rainfall total than I do. Now, that is just wrong. (I was laughing as I typed that.)

There's a lot of flooding to our south in Texas right now. I am getting light rain, but definitely not flooding rain, which I think is a good thing.

Dawn

Holy cow. Stumbled across this post. Cool down: Did it ever! We woke wishing the wood burning stove were available. Sheesh. Enjoyed the heck out of it all, too. Incredible.

Too bad the cooldown has ended! It was nice while it lasted.

Dawn, they are talking about another one...but I don't think it will drop quite as low.

Lisa,

I hope the one they are talking about comes soon.

Many of us are under a Heat Advisory tomorrow and Wed.

The next cooldown can't come soon enough for me.

Dawn