LET'S GET FIRED UP....

Hey weather dudes, just wanted to express my gratitude for the support and well wishes the past couple of days. The surgery for afib went as well as could be expected but I'm sore and tender as fresh asparagus. The medical professionals at St. Luke's in Cedar Rapids were exceptional and have me on the right physically as well as mentally (and that's saying something).

Our weather the next few days will be dictated by a push pull pattern of warm and cold advection. That means we're going to see some temperature fluctuations and perhaps a few thunderstorms as air masses quickly warm and cool.

Wednesday will be a day of moderate warm advection as a cold front swings southeast across the Midwest. With southerly winds we'll see the warmest highs in about 2 weeks. The NAM spits out 83 in Cedar Rapids.

The last time we were higher than that here was July 18th when we reached 84. You can see the monthly highs and lows for CR below. Only 4 90's the whole month and nothing worse than 93.

Along with comfortable temperatures July will also go down as a dry month in Cedar Rapids. Only 2.28" of rain fell which is 2.05 below normal. As you can see below, since May 1st southern Iowa has been much drier than the northern parts of the state where it's actually been wet. Over parts of southeast Iowa growing season rains have been less than 50% of normal.

While there will be some periodic chances for rain the next week it looks like a typical late summer set-up with any rain being widely scattered and subject to the timing of incoming forcing. The Euro has the next chance Wednesday night with this set up at midnight.

Here's the NAM for the same period.

And here's the hi-res 3k NAM

The Weather Prediction Center confines what rain there is to the northern half of my area through Thursday morning.

Behind this system a decent shot of cold air advection will bring readings down again on Thursday.The NAM is showing another day of 70 degree highs for many. Even a few 60s,

By the weekend winds return to the south and warm advection begins again. The Euro is most aggressive on heat with highs that look like this Saturday.

And this on Sunday.

Mid 90's are shown all the way to I-80. I suspect these numbers are 2-4 degrees too warm but it's sure looking like summer is set to make a weekend comeback. Time to get fired up! Roll weather...TS