July 2026 General Discussion

[nvck]

4 hours ago, WestMichigan said:

I guess pleasant is relative.  This is from SW Alaska.  Personally I would agree with you though.
 

 

crazy how perspectives on heat vary so much / change so quickly. coming out of the winter, first 70 degree day of the spring is usually pretty jarring, feels *hot* in the direct sun. after a few months of that, though, the 82 degree high here today felt super pleasant, even in direct sun

[OrdIowPitMsp]

91 yesterday, same today. Hopefully that rain materializes tomorrow night into Friday. We need it badly. 

[Brian D]

Squeaked out an 80/70 this aftrn. Comfortably warm. 

[A-L-E-K]

the way short term models are bouncing around with the track of the slp for fri/sat reminds me a lot of a clipper

[mjwise]

If the EPS mean pans out, it will be a record or near-record SLP for August as it is sliding across central Illinois. Record in that area is 1001-1002mb and EPS mean is hovering around that.

https://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/research/roth/AugustRecordLowSLPs.gif

[Brian D]

85/71/90 this aftrn. Muggy. Hoping for stms later. Lake is getting warmer. The light SSW wind today (5-15 mph) bringing in some Lake air, but not really affecting temps as much now. 10C/50F offshore to 16C/61F down near DLH. Still cool, but warmer air is able to overwhelm near lake surface air temp easier now.

[Brian D]

Rain incoming. Hopefully a soaker this morning. 

[hawkeye_wx]

The Cedar Rapids area was the bulls-eye this morning.  2-3" of rain fell across the city.  My total is 2.70".  Up to 4" fell just east of the city.  It was just pure heavy rain with no thunder.  I love mornings like this.  A few spots could get another 1-2" later today and tonight.

July has been dry, but today's rain doubled my monthly total and we are now above avg.

[A-L-E-K]

stackin'^

[OrdIowPitMsp]

Mid 60s and steady stratiform rain all day, with over an inch so far.
 

It had been over 3 weeks since we’ve seen any substantial precipitation here. 

[cyclone77]

1 hour ago, hawkeye_wx said:

The Cedar Rapids area was the bulls-eye this morning.  2-3" of rain fell across the city.  Up to 4" fell just east of the city.  It was just pure heavy rain with no thunder.  I love mornings like this.  A few spots could get another 1-2" later today and tonight.

July has been dry, but today's rain doubled my monthly total and we are now above avg.

Shocker lol.

[WestMichigan]

Any prospects for meaningful rain in Droughtville?

[IWXwx]

Cue Spartman's weekend washout post

[sbnwx85]

I’m going to cosplay this cut off low as a weak tropical storm.

[OrdIowPitMsp]

1.53” of rain. Slow deep soak. 

[Spartman]

7 hours ago, OrdIowPitMsp said:

Mid 60s and steady stratiform rain all day, with over an inch so far.
 

It had been over 3 weeks since we’ve seen any substantial precipitation here. 

Hope you read this afternoon's AFD for your area, especially when they mention November and the earliest Twin Cities snowfall on record in there:
 

.DISCUSSION...
Issued at 303 PM CDT Fri Jul 31 2026

If I showed you the current water vapor satellite imagery and asked
you what date you thought this was from, I would not blame you if
you said November. There is a nice baroclinic leaf across the upper
MS valley into the western Great Lakes and a dry slot moving across
northeast KS into southeast MN. Although today has been a washout
and a rather crummy weather day, we haven`t heard too many
complaints coming out of a 2 week stretch where most places saw less
than a quarter of an inch of rain with highs frequently topping out
in the 90s. We`ve seen some impressive rainfall totals today and
have seen the gauges to backup the MRMS rainfall estimate bullseye
of 6-8" of rain down around St. Peter and Le Sueur. Despite some
rather larger rainfall numbers, this rain has come over a period of
of 12 hours, not in just 3 or 4 hours, which means impacts from this
rainfall (in terms of flooding) have been fairly minimal. Even
though this heavy rainfall fell almost entirely within the MN River
Basin, rises along the river are expected to remain within the
stream banks. No matter how you slice it, this was an incredibly
beneficial rain that has come with very few negative impacts.

For the weekend, we will not accept any complaints about the
weather! We`ll have rising heights and subsidence, which means
mostly sunny skies with temepratures near normal and dewpoints
retreating into the 50s and 60s. There has been some concern about
smoky skies returning, but visible satellite imagery this afternoon
looks pretty clean from the Dakotas back across Wyoming and Montana,
so even chances for elevated smoke look pretty limited this weekend
as well. Get out there and enjoy the outdoors this weekend, we`re
only 54 days away from the earliest snowfall on record here in the
Twin Cities! (September 24, 1985)

We`ll start next week with a cold front dropping across the area
Monday night through Tuesday morning. Right now, we look to miss-
time this front. We`ll be getting the leftovers of whatever happens
in the Dakotas and northwest MN Monday afternoon late Monday night
in central/western MN, while the front should be far enough along
Tuesday afternoon to where we`ll be too far west to see any storms
that form with daytime heating on Tuesday. Behind this front, we`ll
get another hit of pleasant Canadian air for the middle of next week.

They seem to be passing what will evolve into the cutoff low as a fall-like storm. A bit early for this kind of stuff.

[OrdIowPitMsp]

@Spartmanentetaining read today for sure. After a long stretch of boring weather it’s nice to have an active forecast discussion. Joe Strus wrote the afternoon discussion, he seems to be winter weenie. 

[cmillzz]

14 hours ago, Spartman said:

Hope you read this afternoon's AFD for your area, especially when they mention November and the earliest Twin Cities snowfall on record in there:
 

.DISCUSSION...
Issued at 303 PM CDT Fri Jul 31 2026

If I showed you the current water vapor satellite imagery and asked
you what date you thought this was from, I would not blame you if
you said November. There is a nice baroclinic leaf across the upper
MS valley into the western Great Lakes and a dry slot moving across
northeast KS into southeast MN. Although today has been a washout
and a rather crummy weather day, we haven`t heard too many
complaints coming out of a 2 week stretch where most places saw less
than a quarter of an inch of rain with highs frequently topping out
in the 90s. We`ve seen some impressive rainfall totals today and
have seen the gauges to backup the MRMS rainfall estimate bullseye
of 6-8" of rain down around St. Peter and Le Sueur. Despite some
rather larger rainfall numbers, this rain has come over a period of
of 12 hours, not in just 3 or 4 hours, which means impacts from this
rainfall (in terms of flooding) have been fairly minimal. Even
though this heavy rainfall fell almost entirely within the MN River
Basin, rises along the river are expected to remain within the
stream banks. No matter how you slice it, this was an incredibly
beneficial rain that has come with very few negative impacts.

For the weekend, we will not accept any complaints about the
weather! We`ll have rising heights and subsidence, which means
mostly sunny skies with temepratures near normal and dewpoints
retreating into the 50s and 60s. There has been some concern about
smoky skies returning, but visible satellite imagery this afternoon
looks pretty clean from the Dakotas back across Wyoming and Montana,
so even chances for elevated smoke look pretty limited this weekend
as well. Get out there and enjoy the outdoors this weekend, we`re
only 54 days away from the earliest snowfall on record here in the
Twin Cities! (September 24, 1985)

We`ll start next week with a cold front dropping across the area
Monday night through Tuesday morning. Right now, we look to miss-
time this front. We`ll be getting the leftovers of whatever happens
in the Dakotas and northwest MN Monday afternoon late Monday night
in central/western MN, while the front should be far enough along
Tuesday afternoon to where we`ll be too far west to see any storms
that form with daytime heating on Tuesday. Behind this front, we`ll
get another hit of pleasant Canadian air for the middle of next week.

They seem to be passing what will evolve into the cutoff low as a fall-like storm. A bit early for this kind of stuff.

The bigger story is that July 2026 ended as the sixth warmest July on record at MSP, which is especially notable given the ongoing, strengthening Nino.

Bringing up the earliest snowfall on record isn’t relevant and doesn’t feel appropriate to add in the discussion.

[Brian D]

DLH had an avg July temp of 71.1. Tied 4th with 2019. Very warm! Out of 80 unique temps recorded since 1874, midpoint temp is 66.0. PWS near old wx bureau site had 71.8, which would have been 2nd. DLH picked up 2.41" of rain yesterday. 4.69" for the month. That put them above avg by 0.77". Just as a side note, DLH has missing data for the 27th & 28th. But, NWS obs map has data for DLH on those days, so a reporting error there. I've included the data in this analysis. 

But in contrast, TH coop had a avg temp of 63.2. That tied 45th warmest out of 73 unique temps since 1894. Midpoint temp is 64.2. Much cooler along the shoreline. 2.49" of precip fell short of avg (4.05").