In southwest Louisiana, short-term dryness and warmth and lowering streamflow levels led to a small expansion of moderate drought conditions. Recent rainfall continued to alleviate precipitation deficits in eastern Louisiana and in Mississippi, leading to some improvements in areas of moderate drought and abnormal dryness. Temperatures across the region were mostly either near normal or 5-10 degrees above normal, with a few spots in Texas coming in 5-10 degrees below normal. Elsewhere, mostly dry weather occurred in the region, aside from isolated heavy rain from a thunderstorm in north-central Arkansas. Moderate to heavy rain amounts fell across portions of Louisiana and Mississippi this week. Elsewhere across the region, no changes were made to the ongoing drought depiction, as most of the region remained free of drought or abnormal dryness. Localized improvements to abnormal dryness also occurred in Alabama after heavy rainfall this week. Moderate drought in eastern North Carolina, and surrounding abnormal dryness, was reduced following heavy rains this week, which also improved soil moisture and streamflow levels. Temperatures ranged from near normal to 5-10 degrees above normal across most of the Southeast. Widespread rain amounts of a half inch or more fell across much of the Southeast region this week, except for Florida, where rains were spottier. Elsewhere, the Northeast remained free of drought or abnormal dryness. Recent precipitation has accumulated enough and improved groundwater levels enough on Martha’s Vineyard for the removal of abnormal dryness there, though long-term moderate drought continued on Nantucket. Short-term dryness in parts of northwest New York, combined with lowering streamflows, led to some minor expansion of moderate drought and abnormal dryness where long-term dryness was already lingering. NortheastĪside from parts of northern New England and northwest New York, much of the Northeast saw at least a half inch of precipitation this week. A few spots in the Great Lakes area checked in even warmer than that, with readings 15-20 degrees above normal. In most of the central and eastern U.S., temperatures were near or above normal, especially in the Upper Midwest and Great Lakes, where temperatures from 10 to 15 degrees warmer than normal were common. Temperatures were near or below normal in much of the western U.S. Thus, a mix of improvements and degradations occurred there. Hawaii has been in a trade wind pattern recently, leading to wet weather on the windward sides of the islands but drier conditions on the leeward sides. Recent rainfall improved conditions across much of Puerto Rico. The Great Plains were mostly dry this week, as were parts of the Midwest, except for rain in parts of Illinois, southeast Wisconsin and Michigan. These scans are interpreted by a computer and translated into an image.Heavy precipitation fell across parts of the southern and eastern U.S., and in parts of the West, especially in the Sierra Nevada, where a major blizzard significantly increased snowpack in that range. A complete set of scans takes around 5 minutes to complete. Doppler radars scan the horizon in 360˚ degrees in a set pattern of angles from very low (along the horizon) to very high (almost straight up). This process of emitting a signal, listening for any returned signal, then emitting the next signal, takes place very fast, up to around 1300 times each second. Computers analyze the strength of the returned pulse, the time it took to travel to the object and back, and the phase shift of the pulse. The radar instrument receives a signal from this reflected energy during its listening period. A small fraction of the scattered energy is directed back toward the radar. If the energy strikes an object (raindrop, snowflake, bug, bird, etc), the energy is scattered in all directions. The radar emits a burst, or pulse, of energy. NEXRAD (Next Generation Radar) stations obtain weather information (precipitation and wind) based upon returned energy.
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