Today: Sunny, with a high near 91. Light south southwest wind increasing to 6 to 11 mph in the morning.
Tonight: Partly cloudy, with a low around 72. South wind 7 to 9 mph.

Thursday: Sunny, with a high near 92. Breezy, with a south southwest wind 9 to 18 mph, with gusts as high as 26 mph.
Thursday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 73. Breezy, with a south southwest wind 10 to 16 mph, with gusts as high as 23 mph.

Friday: A 20 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms after 1pm. Mostly sunny, with a high near 93. Breezy, with a southwest wind 10 to 17 mph becoming northwest in the afternoon. Winds could gust as high as 25 mph.
Friday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 67.

Saturday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 85.

You’ve heard of flash flooding. Now, there’s the flash drought. Parts of Iowa are seeing the driest July in decades and Jim Lee, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service, says the term “flash drought” applies, as the heat wave came on very quickly following Iowa’s wettest-ever spring. “A drought can be characterized by a lack of rainfall, low levels of ground water and soil moisture, affects on plants and so forth and sometimes droughts occur over long time scales of several years, sometimes the occur over a period of a few months,” Lee says. “So for the shorter events, sometimes we refer to them as flash droughts.”

Lawns that aren’t being watered are becoming brown and crunchy, especially in parts of central Iowa, where it’s the driest July, so far, since 1976. Des Moines has only gotten six-hundredths of an inch of rain this month. Lee notes, the turnaround from earlier this year is unusual.

“We did have the wettest spring on record in Iowa in terms of the average statewide rainfall from March through May,” Lee says. “We’re not necessarily in a drought yet, in fact, very little of Iowa is in drought conditions right now, however, if we continue to see the dry pattern that we’ve seen established over the last couple of weeks persist through the rest of July, then we could enter that territory.”

Much of the state and a large portion of the region were hit with a drought that lasted the majority of last year, however, the rainy spring gave promise to a change for Iowa. Lee says it’s still not known whether this flash drought will become another full-fledged drought. Lee says, “The fortunate thing about events like this is that because we had that wet spring, we were able to replenish our soil moisture, subsoil moisture, river levels, reservoirs and so forth, so that we’re better able to take a drier second half of summer.”

(Radio Iowa)

The forecast calls for a few scattered showers but no significant rainfall until perhaps the weekend.

The Freese-Notis (Podcast) forecast, and weather information for Atlantic….

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329 AM CDT TUE JUL 16 2013

EARLY THIS MORNING…PARTLY CLOUDY. SOUTH WIND NEAR 5 MPH.

TODAY…PARTLY SUNNY. ISOLATED THUNDERSTORMS LATE IN THE AFTERNOON. HIGH IN THE UPPER 80S. SOUTH WIND 5 TO 10 MPH. CHANCE OF THUNDERSTORMS 20 PERCENT.

TONIGHT…PARTLY CLOUDY. A 20 PERCENT CHANCE OF THUNDERSTORMS IN THE EVENING. LOW IN THE LOWER 70S. SOUTH WIND NEAR 10 MPH.

WEDNESDAY...PARTLY SUNNY. HOT AND HUMID. A 20 PERCENT CHANCE OF THUNDERSTORMS LATE IN THE AFTERNOON. HIGH AROUND 90. SOUTH WIND NEAR 10 MPH. HIGHEST HEAT INDEX READINGS AROUND 100 IN THE AFTERNOON.

WEDNESDAY NIGHT...PARTLY CLOUDY. LOW IN THE LOWER 70S. SOUTH WIND 5 TO 10 MPH.

THURSDAY…MOSTLY SUNNY. HIGH IN THE LOWER 90S. SOUTHWEST WIND 5 TO 15 MPH.

THURSDAY NIGHT…PARTLY CLOUDY. LOW IN THE MID 70S.

FRIDAY…PARTLY SUNNY WITH A 40 PERCENT CHANCE OF THUNDERSTORMS. HIGH IN THE LOWER 90S.

The Freese-Notis forecast for the KJAN listening area, and weather information for Atlantic from KJAN News Director Ric Hanson….

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345 AM CDT MON JUL 15 2013

EARLY THIS MORNING…MOSTLY CLEAR. NORTHEAST WIND NEAR 5 MPH.

TODAY…PARTLY SUNNY. SCATTERED THUNDERSTORMS IN THE LATE MORNING AND AFTERNOON. HIGH IN THE MID 80S. SOUTHEAST WIND 5 TO 10 MPH. CHANCE OF THUNDERSTORMS 30 PERCENT.

TONIGHT…PARTLY CLOUDY. ISOLATED THUNDERSTORMS IN THE EVENING. LOW IN THE UPPER 60S. SOUTHEAST WIND 5 TO 10 MPH. CHANCE OF THUNDERSTORMS 20 PERCENT.

TUESDAY…PARTLY SUNNY. HIGH IN THE UPPER 80S. SOUTH WIND 5 TO 10 MPH.

TUESDAY NIGHT AND WEDNESDAY…PARTLY CLOUDY. LOW AROUND 70. HIGH IN THE LOWER 90S. SOUTH WIND 5 TO 10 MPH.

WEDNESDAY NIGHT…PARTLY CLOUDY. LOW IN THE LOWER 70S.

THURSDAY AND THURSDAY NIGHT…MOSTLY CLEAR. HIGH IN THE LOWER 90S. LOW IN THE MID 70S.

FRIDAY…PARTLY SUNNY WITH A 20 PERCENT CHANCE OF THUNDERSTORMS. HIGH IN THE MID 90S.

430 AM CDT SUN JUL 14 2013

EARLY THIS MORNING...PARTLY CLOUDY WITH A SLIGHT CHANCE OF LIGHT SHOWERS AND ISOLATED THUNDERSTORMS. SOUTHEAST WIND 5 TO 10 MPH. CHANCE OF PRECIPITATION 20 PERCENT.

TODAY…PARTLY SUNNY. HIGH IN THE MID 80S. SOUTHEAST WIND 5 TO 15 MPH.

TONIGHT…MOSTLY CLEAR. LOW IN THE MID 60S. SOUTHEAST WIND 5 TO 10 MPH.

MONDAY…PARTLY SUNNY. A 20 PERCENT CHANCE OF THUNDERSTORMS IN THE AFTERNOON. HIGH IN THE MID 80S. SOUTHEAST WIND 5 TO 10 MPH.

MONDAY NIGHT AND TUESDAY…PARTLY CLOUDY. LOW IN THE UPPER 60S. HIGH IN THE UPPER 80S. SOUTH WIND 5 TO 10 MPH.

TUESDAY NIGHT THROUGH WEDNESDAY NIGHT…PARTLY CLOUDY. LOW IN THE LOWER 70S. HIGH IN THE LOWER 90S.

The Freese-Notis (Podcast) weather forecast for the KJAN listening area, and weather information for Atlantic, from KJAN News Director Ric Hanson…

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345 AM CDT FRI JUL 12 2013

EARLY THIS MORNING...MOSTLY CLEAR. SOUTHEAST WIND 5 TO 10 MPH.

TODAY...MOSTLY SUNNY. HIGH IN THE UPPER 80S. SOUTH WIND 10 TO 15 MPH WITH GUSTS TO AROUND 25 MPH.

TONIGHT…MOSTLY CLEAR. LOW IN THE MID 60S. SOUTHEAST WIND 10 TO 15 MPH.

SATURDAY…PARTLY SUNNY. HIGH IN THE UPPER 80S. SOUTHEAST WIND 10 TO 15 MPH WITH GUSTS TO AROUND 25 MPH.

SATURDAY NIGHT AND SUNDAY…PARTLY CLOUDY. LOW IN THE UPPER 60S. HIGH IN THE MID 80S. SOUTHEAST WIND 5 TO 15 MPH.

SUNDAY NIGHT THROUGH TUESDAY NIGHT…PARTLY CLOUDY. LOW IN THE UPPER 60S. HIGH IN THE UPPER 80S.

The Freese-Notis (podcast) weather forecast for the KJAN listening area and weather information for Atlantic, from KJAN News Director Ric Hanson…

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