Hawkeye

I got a few sprinkles last evening. 0.58" will be my final July total. It's easily my driest July since I began to keep records fifteen years ago. Edit: I forgot there is a slight chance of a shower later this evening, so the 0.58" is not final for sure.

We've been cloudy and in the low 70s all afternoon. It's great. It just began to sprinkle, too, the first drops of rain in over two weeks. Unfortunately, we likely won't get much more than sprinkles out of this. Models continue to show very little, if any, rain over the next 7-10 days.

Like yesterday, the temp has risen to 90º here. However, the dew yesterday was 78º, but it has fallen to 69º this afternoon... a very noticeable difference.

Cedar Rapids is just incredibly unlucky this month. Here is Friday night into Saturday morning

This is a real nice soaker for Dubuque as the western end of the line back-builds.

I don't want any severe weather, but we badly need some solid storms with heavy rain. Unfortunately, there is nothing in sight.

Yeah, the bad station is annoying. It appears to be Independence. You'd think someone at Mesonet would notice and remove the station.

Clouds from the morning MCS to the north have spilled over eastern Iowa all day, helping to keep our temp in the upper 80s so far.

The Cedar Rapids airport is out in the country, among the corn fields. Today CR reported a dew in the upper 60s all day and only rose above 70º over the last hour or two. CR also did not hit 90º today. Assuming we will hit 90º Wednesday, that would be only two 90º highs during the entire heat wave the models were showing.

Cedar Rapids' high/low temp last Saturday was 92/70. That is the only 90º high and the only 70º low this entire month. Today and Wednesday should add a couple more 90s.

Models have pushed any rain next weekend southwest of my area, so it is, once again, 9-10 days before the next chance. This pattern sucks. We are getting surges of high dew air, and we're getting frontal passages, but the fronts are all capped so we get nothing.

It's bone dry in my yard. I've received 0.58" of rain this month, with none in the last eleven days, and the next chance is next weekend. The "next chance" keeps getting pushed back.

Terry Swails has been talking about the upcoming heat and possible break. Considering the GFS and Euro have both been showing the MJO in phase 6, which is a cold phase for our region, he's been thinking the Euro may be overdoing the heat wave.

The rain chances later this week and weekend have mostly vanished from the models. Today's Euro has little if any rain through ten days across Iowa. The GFS has nothing through sixteen days. Ugh.

I had to resume watering my garden yesterday, and especially today. I spent a couple hours watering my garden and my neighbor's pots and sod/seed today.