Iowa Weather Report July 17th 2015: Reaching for The Top of the Heat

HOT AND STICKY: The next two days will feature hot and sticky weather with plenty of heat and plenty of humidity. There will be partly to mostly sunny skies around with some haze as well. Highs will make it into the 80s and 90s across the state. With dew points well into the 70s, we should see heat indices at or over 100 for parts of the state. This looks to be the case on Saturday as well, however there is a chance of some showers and thunderstorms by the afternoon and especially the evening hours across the state with a frontal system moving in from the northwest. Any of these storms could bring heavy rainfall that could cause some localized flooding. It will cool readings down for Sunday and lower the humidity values as well.

MORE COMFORTABLE: As we start the new work week, temperatures will be close to seasonal levels with readings in the 80s. Humidity levels will be tolerable for the most part. It will be sunny to start on Monday but another system looks to swing through late Tuesday into early on Wednesday with a chance of some showers and storms at that time. As we head toward the end of the week, warmer air will try to move in from the south as the ridge looks to intensify across the southern tier of the country. With this, we could see some scattered showers and storms late Thursday into Friday, but the timing of these is still up in the air at this time. We should have a better handle on that in the coming days. Readings will remain in the 80s through the end of the week with the humidity levels beginning to inch upward toward the end.

OVER THE HORIZION: Looking into the extended period which takes us through the end of July into the first of August, the ridge looks to build across the Plains and move the storm track farther to the north of the area. This would bring temperatures up and the humidity up as well. There still will be some chances of showers and storms, but timing is still questionable at this point. Any slight variation can change several days in this period, so stay tuned. The ridge looks to shift toward the west and expand at the end of the period, if this occurs, temperatures would drop off a tad as a northwesterly flow would look to take over with a trough digging in across the east. We’ll have to wait and see.