I’m guessing more than a few folks were surprised by the unexpected spotty showers that moved through the Valley yesterday. A little upper-level wave came off Lake Erie and dived south into our area and that sparked a few brief showers locally.
Many automated weather apps didn’t pick up on this but we did include a small chance in the early morning forecast update to reflect this possibility. Not every neighborhood saw a quick shower yesterday but those that did get a pretty good soaker. I didn’t expect it to come down that hard. Thankfully, the showers quickly scooted off and dissipated by the afternoon came around.
Warm, sunny and dry weather will highlight today. Temperatures this afternoon should warm to around 80° with brilliant sunshine. And, like yesterday, the humidity will be held in check. It’ll be pretty hard to find a nicer late-July day.
The high pressure responsible will stick around through the weekend and keep the dry weather going. We will see a gradual warming trend as a more southerly flow brings in warmer air. We won’t see anything in the 90s this weekend but upper 80s will be common on Sunday.
Along with the steady warming, moisture will also begin to creep in. We will notice this in the form of slightly higher dew points. It will turn a little more humid through the weekend but still nowhere near the oppressive heat we had here last weekend.
NEXT WEEK
A cold front will sink south out of the Great Lakes region early next week. This will bring our next really good chance at some rain in the form of showers and thunderstorms Monday night and Tuesday as the front slowly moves south.
As our dew point trend graphic (above) shows, the humidity will start to creep back up next week, but still, modeling shows it staying below what we normally expect in late July.
I’ll mention a little climate note this morning. Today is the last day that we maintain our seasonal average daytime high temperature of 84°. Tomorrow the average drops by one degree signaling the start of our downward temperature trend.
I don’t want to be a downer here. We still have a lot of summer to go yet and I’m sure we will see at least one more string of hot days. I’m just pointing out that mid-July is the peak of summer heat, climatologically speaking.
Have a great weekend and enjoy the nice weather!
