Dick Faurot's Weather Blog: Warmer, More Humid In Days Ahead

Another beautiful start to our day with many locations back into the 50s again early this morning, but no records this time around. The morning cloud cover helped keep temperatures in check so that, despite sunny afternoon skies, our daytime highs were below normal once again - at least for E OK as you can see on the max/min temperature map for today.

Even warmer temperatures are expected in the days ahead as no major weather systems are currently foreseen anytime soon. There will be a weak boundary that should make it into the state during the day Saturday, but the winds will be light and even where the winds do shift to northerly, it will only be for a brief time and will not impact temperatures much.

So, as you can see on our forecast page, temperatures will be on the rebound and will be at or perhaps a bit above normal as we go through the weekend and into early next week. One thing that will be different though is that the humidity levels will also be on the rise. Notice the dew point temperature map as of late this afternoon for example. Those higher dew points over most of the state will result in much warmer nights and more humid days. In fact, minimum relative humidity levels during the heat of the day should be holding at or above the 40% level as those dew points should mix out somewhat and are expected to be generally in the mid-upper 60s for most of the day. That will be the case each day through this forecast cycle.

As for our chances of rain, it still looks to be a mostly dry forecast. Cannot rule out a few isolated showers and perhaps a storm or two during the Fri/Sat time frame, but the chances of any one location receiving measurable rainfall will be no more than 20%, and that may be optimistic.

Despite the fact we will have those higher dew point temperatures, which is an indication of available moisture, the layers aloft will be relatively dry and the necessary lift to produce much in the way of showers will be primarily further north of us.

A relatively weak system aloft will provide more cloudiness for the Fri/Sat time frame, but again, this system looks to be quite weak and any showers will be hard to come by. In fact, as you can see on the 7-day QPF map, any showers that may occur across the state will be on the light side and, for the most part, it looks to be high and dry. That pattern will likely continue well into September for that matter as the 8-14-day outlooks suggest above normal temperatures and not much in the way of rainfall through that time period.

So, the bottom line is that despite what has been a relatively cool August, we are not through with summer yet. But, at the same time, we do not currently anticipate a return to triple digit temperatures, so, hopefully we are through with those.

In the meantime, stay tuned and check back for updates.

Dick Faurot