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Forecast Discussion:
Amazingly, we move another notch drier today. There is only 1/2 inch of precipitatable water in the atmosphere as of Saturday morning (we get excited about rainfall as it approaches an inch or more). We have orange and red colors painted overhead on the water vapor satellite image (Figure 1). The thicker smoke is a few counties closer to us than it was yesterday as that next trough begins to dig into the Pacific Northwest (it is a very sharp clean cut into the smoke in Washington State and Oregon on Figure 2!).
The precipitation for the next 3 days is extremely close to zero on the GFS outlook (Figure 3). A touch of monsoon moisture may wet the Western Slopes over the next few days. That would be nice.
The longer range forecast:
Our rain forecast is pegged at zero until Tuesday afternoon. A bit of moisture returns then, with a deeper surge showing up on Friday (Figure 4). We might be seeing our last 90'sF this weekend and Monday.
Since the weather is very quiet, let's look at some really long range trends. Based on the longer range models and sea surface temperature trends, NOAA has painted us (Figure 5) as having better than average chances of being warmer than normal for the end of the Summer into the Fall (September, October, November or "SON" in the legend). Similarly, the precipitation outlook for this time (Figure 6) has us at near normal precipitation with above average amounts in the desert southwest of the U.S.