The remnants of Tropical Storm Hermine continued to be a player in the weather over parts of the Nation's midsection early on this Thursday, producing very big rains over the Ozark Mountain region. That system is forecast to produce heavy rains over the next 24 hours over southern Missouri, northern Arkansas, and parts of the lower Ohio River Valley. A separate weather system was producing rains early today over the northwestern Corn Belt, with northwestern Iowa and southwestern Minnesota seeing rain amounts of over a half inch overnight. Those rains will die off early today, but a fresh weather system will bring rains to the far northwestern Corn Belt and the Northern Plains tomorrow. That system will sweep eastward through the Midwest for tomorrow night and Saturday to given most areas east of the Missouri River a rain threat before dry weather is seen for Sunday and Monday. I still see a wet period for especially central and western parts of the Corn Belt and parts of the central Plains for Tuesday to Thursday of next week a pretty decent north-south temperature contrast gets set up for the Nation's midsection, and there should be some rainfall amounts of better than an inch for that area in the period in question. No big warmth is suggested through September 18 for especially northern parts of the Nation, but there is still no indication of any sort of a frost threat for the Midwest for that time frame either. Big warming is suggested after that, so we are going to be at least to September 23 (probably longer) without a frost this year in the Midwest. As far along as the crops are this year, a frost even on that date will find a big percentage of the Nation's corn and soybean crops already mature. It will be important to eventually get some better moisture into the hard-red winter wheat belt ahead of the heart of winter wheat planting season. Not much is seen there for the next five days, and western parts of that region may continue to be short-changed in the 6-10 day time frame as well.