Typical Summer Weather

Now that the long dry period has been broken by a strong surge of Monsoon moisture from the south, it appears Star Valley and surrounding areas will experience more typical mid summer weather.

Although rainfall amounts from Thursdays showers were not great, generally around .2 of an inch, the air mass has moistened up considerably over what has been the case for about the last month.

The disturbance that accompanied the moist surge has moved on and over the next several days a large upper high will develop over this part of the country and dominate through the middle of the month.

Following is a sequence of 500mb charts showing this trend,

500 MB analysis Friday AM July 6 2012

500 MB forecast Sunday AM July 8 2012

500 MB forecast Tuesday AM July 10 2012

500MB forecast Thursday July 12 2012

 With the moisture now in the area, the strong daytime heating under the upper high will trigger afternoon and evening showers and thunderstorms.  Rainfall will be spotty with the storms and be mainly over and near the higher mountains. 

Temperatures will be warm with 80s and even low 90s in Star Valley.  However nights will see temperatures dropping into the 40s and low 50s. 

The general precipitation that fell Thursday aided the fire fighters on the Fontenelle Fire.  However concern remains as warmer and drier days are likely into next week.

There is an excellent web site to monitor the fire situation..

http://www.inciweb.org/incident/2934/