Dry Stretch of Weather Helpful in Flooded Areas

The days leading up to and following Christmas were anything but joyful for many.  From severe weather in Texas, to winter weather on the other side of the state.  Ice storms and flooding rains from the south to as far north as central Illinois, it will be nice to have a week of just dry weather.

Here's the 5 day precipitation outlook for the United States and as we head into 2016.  The southern branch of the jet stream will turn a little more active keeping a lot of the wet weather from the west to the southeast.  There is the potential for some flooding with this pattern, but at least for residents along the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, as well as other local rivers who are dealing with historic flooding, skies will remain dry.

Unfortunately, river levels will continue to run high and in major flood stage for the next several days, but after the weekend (assuming little precipitation falls) those levels will begin to recede.  Each green line you see on the map to the left is a flood warning for some portion of a river.  You can almost follow the Mississippi River and where other rivers spill into it.  Let's hope the drier pattern sticks around a little further into January.