NOT TOO SHABBY...

A persistent and amplified upper air pattern has kept the central U.S. out of the oven for all but a couple of weeks this summer. Check these temperature departures out for the past 4 months. Below normal readings have been a common theme.

Past 7 days.

The past 14 days

The past 30 days

The past 60 days

The past 120 days (4 months)

As you can see South Dakota has been the epicenter of the cool weather with the surrounding Plains heavily involved.

A consistent factor driving the cool conditions has been precipitation and associated cloud cover. Here's the total precipitation over the past 90 days.

The precipitation anomalies for the 90 day period show expansive wet weather covering the central U.S.

The overall persistence in the long term pattern remains unchanged through the weekend as the trough re-amplifies over the Midwest. Here's the 500mb jet stream flow to start the weekend.

Look how that keeps temperatures below normal the next 5 days. Different time but same old story.

However, there is a trend for de-amplification late this weekend. See the warmer look to the day 5-10 period.

Finally towards the last week of August the 500mb jet actually has some ridging that is expected to bring some noticeable warmth.

That's a much warmer look and you can see the day 14 temperature departures showing a push all the way into Canada.

I doubt if this holds for a long period of time but the potential is there for a summery surge the last week of August, something I alluded to last week.. The Climate Prediction Center shows the trend.

Meantime, Wednesday through Friday look decent. There may be a few spotty showers or storms but forcing is limited and coverage looks widely scattered at best around my area. Temperatures look good with highs in the upper 70s to low 80s. Not too shabby for the dog days of summer. Roll weather...TS