The last two weeks have brought a continued active pattern across Ohio, with numerous showers and storms hitting just about every corner of the state. The most active weather has been focused across the central third of the state, with widespread reports of 2-6” of rain over this period (Figure 1). Lighter amounts have fallen across the far northwest, portions of the northeast, and across southeastern counties. Still, drought area for Ohio is down to 28% as of Thursday July 6, 2023 (US Drought Monitor). Our CFAES Rapid Response Team continues to manage the drought response resource site and encourage readers to continue to submit observations and impacts for your location by visiting https://go.osu.edu/drought_cmor.
Forecast
We will start out under high pressure this week, though a front sagging south into the region could bring a few showers and storms to northern Ohio on Tuesday. The front will stall out over the region for mid-week through the weekend, bringing daily rounds of showers and storms across the entire state. Rain will not occur everywhere, everyday, but locally heavy rain will be possible each day throughout this period. Highs will generally be in the 80s with lows in the 60s all week.
The current Climate Prediction Center’s 8-14 Day Outlook and the 16-Day Rainfall Outlook from NOAA/NWS/Ohio River Forecast Center indicate that probabilities for temperatures and precipitation are leaning above average for the period July 14 – 24, 2023 (Figure 3). Climate averages include a high-temperature range of 84-87°F, a low-temperature range of 63-67°F, and average weekly total precipitation of 0.85-1.0 inch
