Muggy Monsoon Fetch

I returned last night to Salt Lake City from upstate NY with the hopes of feeling some low humidity air, but it wasn't to be.

Instead, thanks to a healthy monsoon fetch and yesterday's storms, the dewpoint was 62ºF when we stepped off the plane at 10:30 last night.  That was actually down just a bit from a 65ºF maximum at around 9:30 PM.

The regional analysis for 1200 UTC (0600 MDT) this morning shows Arizona and Utah are sandwiched between a deep upper-level trough off the Pacific coast and a high-amplitude ridge centered near the Texas Panhandle.  Strong southerly flow is drawing moisture into Utah and as far north as Montana.

GFS 500-mb geopotential height (black contours), precipitable water (color contours), and IR satellite imagery at 1200 UTC 12 Aug 2015.

Drier air is actually not too far away if you go west into Nevada.  However, this is a slow moving pattern, so the shower and thunderstorm activity looks to be around today and tomorrow.