Iowa Weather Report August 20th 2015: Where Has Summer Gone?

A FAIRLY QUIET NEXT SEVEN: Outside of a rain chance late Saturday night into the first half of Sunday, it will be quiet for the next seven days across the state. Until that system this weekend, it will be mostly sunny with readings slowly climbing back through the 70s today into the 80s by Saturday. Humidity levels will be tolerable so there’s no reason “weather related” that you can’t go to the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines through at least Saturday. The next system will come in on Saturday afternoon through the evening and overnight into the first half of Sunday. This will bring showers and thunderstorms to the state at that time. Rainfall amounts around a half inch are possible with isolated heavier totals. Severe weather is possible especially in the northwestern counties, but the best chances look to be north of the area. After temperatures cool off heading into the first week of the school year next week, readings will slowly rise once again as the winds turn to the south and southwest. This should boost temperatures well into the 80s for most of the state.

EXTENDED PERIOD: Heading into the extended period, a system tries to approach the state from the west toward the end of next week into the following weekend. The GFS shows some precipitation making it into the western counties next Friday and Saturday but not getting much farther east than that. It also shows the warm weather continuing as well with readings likely to be in the 80s for the most part. The GFS continues to show fairly dry weather through the end of the period with little chance of rain as we look into the first few days of September. We’ll see if this trend continues in future model runs.