diff --git a/tessreduce/tessreduce.py b/tessreduce/tessreduce.py
index 4094268..32d39f9 100755
--- a/tessreduce/tessreduce.py
+++ b/tessreduce/tessreduce.py
@@ -934,6 +934,7 @@ def _bkg_round_3(self,iters=5):
 				bkg_3 = Parallel(n_jobs=self.num_cores)(delayed(_parallel_bkg3)(self.bkg[i],dist_mask[i]) 
 														   for i in np.arange(len(dist_mask)))
 			else:
+				bkg_3 = []
 				bkg_smth = np.zeros_like(dist_mask)
 				for i in range(len(dist_mask)):
 					bkg_3[i] = _parallel_bkg3(self.bkg[i],dist_mask[i])