Weather Forecast

KCRG TV9 First Alert Forecast For Dubuque and the Tri-States

KCRG Weather Blog

Beyond the Weather: Lyrid meteor shower

The Lyrid meteor shower will peak next week. Late evening on Monday, April 22 to the morning hours of Tuesday, April 23 is the time to watch. Look to the northeast sky and find the constellation Lyra. At the top of this constellation is the bright star Vega. Make sure you are away from city light pollution. On a perfectly dark night, you will see 10 to 20 meteors per hour. However, moonlight will take away some of the views this year. The next meteor shower is the Eta Aquarids, which peaks on May 5. Happy stargazing!

Potential for severe storms Wednesday evening

The Storm Prediction Center is still highlighting southern Iowa for a risk of severe thunderstorms Wednesday evening. The majority of the severe weather should be much farther south in Oklahoma and Texas. Isolated thunderstorms early Wednesday morning are not expected to be severe. Most of the day after that looks rain-free until late. By about 5 p.m. Wednesday, we should start to see scattered thunderstorms develop somewhere around the Interstate 35 corridor. Those storms will then move eastward through the evening and past the Mississippi by midnight Wednesday night. If storms do turn severe, hail appears to be the main risk. Gusty winds could also occur. At this time, the tornado risk looks very low.

Thunderstorms late Wednesday may produce severe weather

A couple of weather systems will bring us rain and thunderstorms Wednesday and Thursday. Depending on how they track, there is a potential for strong to severe thunderstorms late Wednesday. At this time, it appears the main severe weather risk locally will be generally near and south of Interstate 80. If the warm front can get farther north, then that severe weather potential may expand northward, too. The main risks, if severe weather does develop, will be for gusty winds and hail. There is a low tornado risk with this system, but it will be a factor we watch. The main timeframe would be roughly between 5 p.m. and midnight. Again, the potential for severe weather locally will depend on how this system moves and will become clearer as we get closer.

A cool April pattern tends to be wet

As the cool air continues to linger across the Midwest, this tends to bring us a higher than normal chance of wet weather. One of the biggest reasons behind this is the warm, humid air condensing as it becomes forced into the cold air over the Midwest. Strong low pressure systems also like to hug the edge of the cold, which enhances our risk for additional rainfall. Next week, our weather will become active yet again as a large, slow-moving low pressure system impacts the Midwest. For us, this will probably be a cool rain.

Beyond the Weather: Black Hole

Earlier this week, something once thought impossible to see was seen. We received and saw the first ever picture of a black hole. A black hole is a region in space that has an intense gravitational field. This field is so intense that nothing can escape it. This would include matter, radiation and even light. They form when a massive star collapses at the end of its life. The black hole is some 55 million light years away from the earth in the M87 galaxy. This black hole is 6.5 billion times the mass of our sun. The Event Horizon Telescope project is responsible for this amazing photo. It was taken by coordinating 10 radio telescopes. Massive amounts of data needed to be processed and put together, much like a puzzle, to create this image.