
WELCOME TO JULY...
Back in the cold dark days of January, thoughts of July were a coping mechanism that allowed me to navigate the slow slog of time leading up to summer. It seems to take forever to get here and once it does, it's over in a flash. Well, here it is once again and I'm determined to appreciate it's heat and humidity because I know, July is a blur, the fastest moving month of the year that always runs its course at an unrelenting pace. I feel you July and I'm glad you're here! Thur

MORE POWER BABY...
Tuesday, NOAA inaugurated the nation’s newest weather and climate supercomputers with an operational run of the National Blend of Models. The new supercomputers provide a significant upgrade to computing capacity, storage space and interconnect speed of the nation’s Weather and Climate Operational Supercomputing System. “This is a big day for NOAA and the state of weather forecasting,” said Ken Graham, director of NOAA’s National Weather Service. “Researchers are developing n

BEST WEATHER ON THE PLANET...
Every once in awhile our weather reaches an inflection point where it reverses patterns and in essence takes a deep breath. In doing so it relaxes, recharges, and brings us some of the best weather on the planet. That's certainly been the case the past couple of days with comfortable temperatures and low humidity dominating the Midwest. Just look at these temperatures at noon Monday. Just as nice, dew points at the same time were in the upper 40s to low 50s. Notice those nast

BRIEF RELIEF FROM THE HEAT...
Sunday was gorgeous across eastern Iowa -- sunshine, a bit of a breeze and low humidity. Temperatures were much cooler and running below normal by around 5-10 degrees in the afternoon: Humidity was incredibly low for late June standards: Temperatures will remain slightly below normal to start the new week on Monday under plenty of sunshine: And humidity will be slightly higher but still on the low side: We'll go from the cooler, more comfortable conditions with troughiness in

SATURDAY MORNING DELUGE FOR SOME...
Heavy rain fells Saturday morning across my local area leading to some of the highest totals we've seen in quite some time. The Cedar Rapids airport picked up three inches of rain, the most we've had in a single day since September of 2016. In the last 15 days we've only had 0.25" of rain and we've been falling behind for the year. Here's the rainfall totals through 9 am Saturday: Some additional rain fell after 9 am as well as some scattered thunderstorms in the afternoon/ev