Iowa Weather Report July 4th 2013 – Iowa Weather Network Archives

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LET THE SUNSHINE RING: It will be a great day for the Independence Day holiday with mostly sunny skies and temperatures in the lower to middle 80s. There could be an isolated shower or storm in the afternoon and evening, but the chances are 20% or less across the state and didn’t mention it on the forecast graphics. Any showers or storms that do fire today will be gone by the time fireworks are to be set off after sunset. Readings at that time should be in the mid 70s or so with a little bit of a breeze. You can’t get much better weather to celebrate with.

FIREWORKS RETURN: Unfortunately the weather does look to take a turn to the wet side by the latter half of the weekend into early next week with a threat of showers and thunderstorms Sunday through the middle of next week with a stalled boundary in the area. This will be as the trough and upper level disturbance will lift out and the westerlies begin to sag to the south again. This would put the state in the battle ground between the hot air over the southern Plains and the cooler air over the Great Lakes. This could be similar to what we had a few weeks ago with several rounds of showers and thunderstorms but not an all day rain by any means. There will be some peaks of sunshine and dry periods intermixed. If this is like what occurred a few weeks ago, we could get some heavy rain which may lead to some flooding. Given the amount of dry weather we’ve had for the last few days, flash flooding wouldn’t look likely at this time unless we were to get some training with storms. We will have to watch this carefully and watch for any changes in the coming model runs.

THE EXTENDED PERIOD: A ridge looks to build across the plains and central Rockies around the 13-14th of July. This would bring warmer air to the state and the threat of rain will begin to dissipate as the main westerlies move to the north of the state. This looks to last a few days before the ridge retrogrades back to the desert southwest as a trough develops over the Great Lakes. This would bring a northwesterly flow across the state and bring the rain back once again and temperatures near seasonal averages. We’ll continue to monitor.