Late in the day rain fell at the Indianapolis Airport for the first time in nearly three weeks. Area-wide rainfall is still on hold
DOWNPOURS DIMINISH
For the second straight afternoon, showers and a few thunderstorms bubbled up during the peak heating of the day and derived some needed rainfall. Entering the day we were headed for the driest close to a May in over 100 years but late day a thunderstorms developed on the southwest side of the city and delivered over one-third of a inch of rain at the airport, marking the first measured rainfall in nearly two weeks. Unfortunately the rain was very selective and most locations remained rain-free again Thursday. The select nature of the rain is impressive and well illustrated in the map below. The image is of radar estimated rainfall and I’ve overlay some ground observations. Little to no rain fell in downtown Indianapolis while just down the road at the airport or the south side it poured. Check out the ground report from New Palestine and how the radar just down the road indicated over one-inch of rain!
Rainfall is fueled by the afternoon heating of the day and once the sun starts setting these showers and thunderstorms will be diminishing. If you need the rain, you will have one more short at a few downpours Thursday then any rainfall chance is out for several more days.
June opens with a continuation of dry weather and no real area-wide rainfall is expected for several more days. Lowering in humidity starting Thursday night will bring even warmer afternoon temperatures through the weekend with the potential for our first 90-degree days of the year. Despite a cold front passing Monday/Tuesday rainfall still looks very limited over the next 6-10 days.
SPRING CLOSES ON A WARM STREAK
The high temperature Wednesday reached 88° marking the warmest of the year and closing out meteorological spring with a four day warm streak. While days were evenly distributed with 46 above vs 44 below, the average temperature this spring was among the warmest 26% on record ranking 39th. This spring may be best described as a spring with some wild swings. We started the month of March with a high of 76°, had record warmth and snowfall in April and opened May with a high of only 48°.
