THURSDAY WEATHER: 🌦️ After a couple of unusually dry days, rain chances will begin to return to the forecast today. There’s a 30% chance of thunderstorms this afternoon. The window for storms will be narrow today, and most folks will stay dry. Otherwise, it’ll be mostly sunny and hot, with a high of about 88 degrees.
THE WEEKEND: This is hardly a surprise, given recent trends, but thunderstorms will be likely throughout the weekend. There will be about a 70% chance of storms each afternoon (Friday-Sunday), with temperatures in the mid 80s. However, this is not the same setup as we’ve had the past few weekends. There’ll be less available moisture and less of a trigger, so flooding potential is much lower.
NEXT WEEK: Drier air will mean lower rain chances next week, though our chances of rain won’t disappear completely. It is still summer, after all. Temperatures will remain right about normal for this time of year, or perhaps slightly above, topping out in the upper 80s each day. There’s nothing extraordinary about the pattern coming up. It is going to be typically hot, but perhaps not exceptionally so, and it doesn’t look like we’re going to see a return of the dry conditions that brought on the drought but the tropics should also remain quiet, which means a lack of those subtropical drenchings that we sometimes see by this time of year.
RIVER CONDITIONS: The Big South Fork River dropped below 1,000 cubic feet per second (cfs) overnight, but remains above normal for this time of year. In fact, there’s still almost three times as much water flowing in the river as there usually is in mid July. Clear Fork is still flowing just above 300 cfs, which is also more than three times the norm for mid July. Water clarity continues to improve, and water temperatures have rebounded into the mid 70s.
