Douglas County has seen a few inches of rain and could see more ahead of much cooler temperatures and a hard freeze expected over the weekend and into Monday.
The area of the Lawrence airport saw almost 2.4 inches of rain Wednesday, on top of 1.62 inches from Tuesday, according to the National Weather Service almanac. Parts of the county south of Lawrence saw even more rain, according to a map from Douglas County GIS.
Storms were expected to continue overnight into Thursday, with an 80% chance of precipitation throughout the day and a forecasted high of 75°, according to the NWS office in Topeka. The NWS forecast showed a slight chance of showers and thunderstorms Friday, and Friday night is expected to be clear.
Although Thursday should see a high of 75°, temperatures were expected to start dropping Thursday night, with a forecasted low of 48°. Friday could see a high of 61° and an overnight low around 35°, according to the NWS as of early Thursday.
Saturday and Sunday are also expected to bring showers and even colder temperatures.
“Temperatures are expected to fall near or below freezing Saturday and Sunday mornings, supporting frost and freeze conditions,” according to the NWS. “A widespread hard freeze is forecast Monday morning as temperatures fall into the low to mid 20s.”
Monday and Tuesday (Halloween) are both expected to be sunny but chilly, with high temperatures forecast in the mid-40s as of early Thursday.
See free weather resources below to stay up to date with the forecast.
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Severe weather resources
National Weather Service local office (Topeka):
• Find the latest weather forecast info and severe weather advisories for the Lawrence area at this link.
• In the event of rapidly changing severe weather, such as tornadoes, the NWS posts frequent updates on Twitter, @NWSTopeka. You do not need a Twitter account to see tweets from NWS.
• NWS is also on Facebook, facebook.com/NWSTopeka.
• Call 785-234-2592 to hear the forecast.
Douglas County Emergency Management:
• Follow @DgCoEM on Twitter or Douglas County, KS- Emergency Management on Facebook, facebook.com/dgcoem.
• Sign up to receive emergency alerts at dgcoks.org/emalerts.
• Find lots of tips on severe weather and other emergency preparedness on DgCoEM’s website at douglascountyks.org/emergency-management.
• Report storm damage (for non-emergencies only, and after storm danger has passed) by calling the nonemergency dispatch line at 785-843-0250 or 785-832-7509.
Evergy outages:
• Check the status of power outages on the Evergy outage map, outagemap.evergy.com.
• Report a power outage at evergy.com/report-outage, or call 800-544-4857.
• For down powerlines, call 911.
City of Lawrence snow info:
• The city has snow information and a map at lawrenceks.org/snow that shows information about road conditions and snow plow locations. The city typically begins snow and ice control for residential roadways when 2 or more inches of snowfall or icing occurs.
Air quality:
• Check the current air quality index in Lawrence and elsewhere through AirNow, airnow.gov.
