Summer 2026 Is in the Books

Meteorological summer (June, July, and August) is now in the books and as usual it is great to have it in the rear view mirror.  

Summer was a scorcher by long-term standards at the Salt Lake City International Airport.  The average temperature was 80.2°F, the 7th highest all time (the record is 81.4°F set in 2022).  A look the long term trends in summer temperatures shows we are no-longer operating in the climate that prevailed during the 20th century.  The 10 hottest summers on record were all in the 21st century when the trend is clearly upward.  

Mean Average Temperature June-August at the Salt Lake City International Airport.  Source: https://xmacis.rcc-acis.org/.

We also set an all time maximum temperature record of 109°F on July 12th, tied the all time high minimum temperature record of 82°F on July 27 (set previously in 2021 and 2023), and saw 20 days with a maximum temperature of 100°F or higher (the record for summer is 27 in 2022 and for the year is 34 also in 2022).  

Precipitation at the airport provides a good example of the devil being in the details.  For the whole summer, the airport recorded 2.63" of precipitation, which is above average (2.02"), but June was well below average (.17" vs. .95), July just a shade above average (.62" vs. .49"), and no measurable rain fell the first 12 days of August.  Thus the summer featured a precipitation deficit through about mid August, when we got into a wetter pattern.  Percent of normal precipitation over northern Utah shows many areas above 300% of normal, although there are a few bands below average.  Many of our storms in the latter half of August moved from southwest to northeast across the region, and this is quite apparent in the map below.  

For me, the summer of 2026 was one in which I fully experienced the ugly face of global warming.  I was in Europe until July 8, experiencing the early end of snow cover in the Alps and the June heat wave.  Then I came home for our hot summer and the 109°F all-time high at the airport.  

I miss the climate of the 20th century.  I suspect I'll miss it more in the future. 

Thunderstruck!

It sure can get exciting around here when monsoon (and tropical storm remnants) can interact with a mid-latitude trough.  This morning in the Salt Lake Valley has been incredible with round after round of heavy rain and thunder.  These are not those high-based "virga storms" that we sometimes get around here, but the real deal with pretty good downpours and loud, crashing thunder.  Love it.

We discussed the ingredients for today's rain in the post from a couple of days ago entitled An Unusual Moisture Pathway.  Those ingredients included the remnants of tropical storm Iselle and a front that was expected to develop over central Nevada.  Indeed these ingredients came together ahead of a deepening trough along the Pacific Northwest coast.  The front is especially apparent at 700 mb (lower left panel below) where there is temperature contrast and wind shift between southern Utah and northern Nevada and Utah.  The large-scale wind pattern is one that meteorologists call confluent and in this case the confluence and temperature contrast are setup to favor precipitation development along the front.  

MRMS precipitation estimates from 0600–1800 UTC (0000–1200 MDT) shows a band of accumulated precipitation aligned along the front with embedded bands of heavier precipitation associated with thunderstorms that moved along the front and from southwest to northeast across northern Utah.  The switch from green to yellow shading occurs at 0.5".  A good fraction fo the Salt Lake Valley saw at least that much.  There are a few areas above 1.0" including portions of the Avenues. 

Source; https://mrms.nssl.noaa.gov/qvs/product_viewer/

Those numbers may be a bit high compared to gauges, but a neighbor reported 0.69" and our lower University of Utah measurement stations are at 0.57" and 0.60".  

It's not over yet.  Showers and thunderstorms remain possible through at least tonight.  Some of those storms could be severe (e.g., wind gusts up to 70 mph, hail > 1 inch, heavy rain, lightning) as indicated by the National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center and Salt Lake City Forecast office.  

Source: NWS.  Downloaded ~1245 MDT 29 August 2026

Snow!

I'll just put these here for some high stoke, low probability snow possibilities.  There are some ensemble members producing snow in northern Utah late next week and weekend.    

OK, truth be told it's three ensemble members out of 82.  

I told you it was a low probability possibility.

An Unusual Moisture Pathway

The remnants of Tropical Storm Iselle are taking an unusual pathway into the western US interior and will be visiting northern Utah this weekend.  

Yesterday morning (1200 UTC 26 August), Iselle's remnants were to the west of the Baja Peninsula.  The color contours below are precipitable water in millimeters with warmer colors indicating higher values.  Precipitable water is a measure of the total water vapor in the atmosphere expressed as the depth of water if all of that water vapor were to condense and fall out.  Iselle's remnants were associated with a maximum in precipitable water above 65 mm.  

Iselle's remnants moved northwestward yesterday and last night.  As this happened, they began to interact with the southwest flow ahead of an upper-level trough off the Pacific Coast, resulting in a plume of high precipitable water movign northeastward toward California. 

That plume spreads eastward and ultimately serves as the locus for precipitation development over Nevada tomorrow afternoon (0000 UTC 29 August).  A relatively strong front also forms in that area during the day tomorrow due in part to daytime surface heating in southern Nevada, which is more cloud free, and northern Nevada which is cloudier and experiencing cooling beneath the precipitation.  This leads to a 700-mb temperature difference across Nevada of almost 10°C at 700 mb.  

That system then slides into northern Utah Friday night and Saturday.  At 1800 UTC 29 August (1200 MDT Saturday), the front is just to the south and east of the Salt Lake Valley with the GFS producing scattered precipitation (probably showers and thunderstorms) over northern Utah.  

A look at the ECMWF AIFS forecast shows it is much more bullish on precipitation Saturday morning.  The plot below (upper right) is a 6-hour accumulation whereas the one above for the GFS is a 3-hour accumulation, but still, the precipitation is clearly heavier and more widespread.  

Neither of these models is able to resolve the details of convective storms, so for now I have a wait and see attitude about how this will turn out.  Saturday though does look cooler and we can all be thankful for that.

What Hast the Thunderstorms Brought?

The last few days have brought regular afternoon and evening thunderstorms to the Salt Lake Valley.  It's worth taking a closer look at the drivers for the storms and who has gotten the rain.  

On average, the 500-mb heights in August are characterized by  a ridge that is centered roughly over west Texas and a trough over or just to the west of the Pacific coast.  This pattern yields mean easterly flow at 500-mb over central Mexico which turns clockwise (cyclonically in meteorology speak) near Baja California before moving into Utah.  

Source: climatereanalyzer.org

The pattern above is characteristic of the so-called North American Monsoon.  This monsoonal pattern has been amplified the past several days.  As an example, below are the 500-mb height anomalies (departures from average) for today.  Positive height anomalies over the western US and Mexico are strongest over west Texas and the Mexican border area to the west, right where the 500-mb ridge is on average.  In contrast, negative height anomalies are strongest just off the Pacific Coast.  

Source: climatereanalyzer.org

Thus, the current pattern is one in which the primary monsoon circulation features, the ridge over west Texas and the trough off the Pacific coast, are stronger than average.  

This pattern has brought us enough monsoon moisture and perhaps some large-scale lift from the Pacific trough to allow surface heating to generate scattered to widespread thunderstorms each afternoon and evening.  These storms have generally moved from southwest to northeast across northern Utah.  This can be seen in the radar-estimated precipitation for the past 24-hours, which covers last nights storms.  Precipitation was heaviest in a band oriented roughly from southwest to northeast near the southern shore of the Great Salt Lake and into the Bountiful area Mountains.  A second band of heavier precipitation extends over what I'll jokingly call the "Herriman rain forest" in the southwest Salt Lake Valley.   

https://mrms.nssl.noaa.gov/qvs/product_viewer/

If we look over a 3-day (72-hour) period, we see that everyone in the valley has seen some rain, but the big winner is the southern Oquirrhs and the Herriman rain forest, with one area near Herriman seeing over 1.25".  

https://mrms.nssl.noaa.gov/qvs/product_viewer/

There's a lot of variability in the valley.  One can find some areas around Cottonwood Heights that may have seen < 0.2", while other areas in the central and western valley are over 0.5".  The maximum near Herriman is over 1.5", but if you move a bit to the east toward I-15 there is a band with < 0.5".  Then there's another streak of heavier precipitation over Draper.  

This is the nature of these hit-and-miss thunderstorms.  I wish we had got a bit more at my place, but am glad we got something.  

ECMWF AIFS Forecasts Now Available

Forecasts from the ECMWF Artificial Intelligence/Integrated Forecast System (AIFS) are now available on weather.utah.edu.  Look for ECMWF AIFS in the left-hand nav bar.  An example forecast is below.  Based on the data available, most of our favored four-panel variables are available, but due to limitations in the data provided, there is no forecast of outgoing longwave radiation (used for a forecast infrared satellite image) in the upper-right panel and the precipitation is six hourly, which is a longer accumulation period than many of our products.  

As illustrated in the link at the top of this post, AIFS forecast skill at 500 mb is roughly the equivalent of the ECMWF IFS (called HRES on weather.utah.edu) through about day four. At longer lead times, it exhibits somewhat better skill.  The AIFS forecasts after 9 days are about as good as the IFS at 8.5 days, so they are basically giving you an extra half day of skill at longer lead times.  That's not enough to abandon looking at the IFS, GFS, or ensembles, but it certainly makes sense to make the AIFS an important edition to your forecast workflow.  

The AIFS forecasts are produced at ~31 km grid spacing and provided on at 0.25° grid.  The latter is similar to what we use for the GFS-0p25deg and ECMWF HRES products on weather.utah.edu.  However, the AIFS forecasts are smoother, especially for precipitation, which is a reflection of the training dataset and techniques.  

In the long run, I am interested in adding the AIFS ensemble to the Utah Snow Ensemble.  That is a 51 member ensemble run at ~31 km grid spacing and available at 0.25 deg.  We have put in for computer time and engineering support on the new University of Utah Redtail supercomputer, but a lot has to fall into place for this to happen.  It's unclear if I have enough bandwidth and compute power to make this happen otherwise, although one never knows.