IEM Daily Feature
Thursday, 25 October 2012

Dew Points then Precipitation

Posted: 25 Oct 2012 05:00 AM

The very muggy air that has visited Iowa for the past fews days is almost swept clean from the state with the passage of a strong front this morning. It took a bit for showers and thunderstorms to get going Wednesday evening, but the rains did come after sunset. The featured chart looks at the frequency of getting measurable precip for a 24 hour period after a given dew point observation by week of the year. The general pattern is with increased dew points for a given week, the chances of precip increase as well. The highest frequencies are for the spring and fall periods at relatively high dew points for that time of year. These higher dew points are often associated with storm systems that draw moist air from the gulf region northwarn and eventually lead to precipitation, like what is happening today.

Voting:
Good = 27
Bad = 3

Tags:   precip   dewpoint   climate