Iowa's State Fair is a big deal in IA- especially DSM where it's held. (personally I don't care for it) -- but here are the hottest temps daily for the IA State Fair. And one must understand that in the past - it may not have been hotter than 1983, but certainly closer than known apples to apples as the IA State Fair was 10-14 days later in AUG than now back in 36' and 47'.
These records for 83' especially the top 3 ( 108F - 103F and 104F back to back to back will likely never be touched again in the month of Aug or any month) And this has nothing to do with the Dust Bowl. one could debate that 83' Aug record of 83.3 monthly mean is more impressive than anything that has happened in July- since it happened outside the dust bowl.
I added season model images and ocean/ice plots on my website (satellitewx.com). Here is the change in sea surface temperatures in the last month. You can see the warming ENSO regions, cooling just east of the Maritime Continent region. It's a mixed bag in the north Pacific for the PDO.
Pretty consistent heat here over the next week, slightly warming late next week. Probably 100+ every day, maybe a few days around 104-106F. At least overall there seems to be a bit of a cooling signal towards the end of the month.
As stated in my earlier statement/forecast/whatever, the smoke forecast was completely wrong by the experts. We are still in the green with some normal yellowing in the expected areas. As also stated, I said Whatcom and possibly Skagit would get some Canadian smoke. Come on experts, you can do better than that. I am just a guy looking at modeling that you should be able to figure out too.