Radar — KSFX
Surface Analysis — Western U.S. (North)
Satellite
- monsoon moisture will keep showers and storms around through wednesday and possibly into thursday
- hotter temperatures and very dry conditions return heading into the weekend, including heat risk impacts. Saturday expected to be hottest day with many locations at 100 degrees.
- critical to near-criticial fire weather conditions expected for the next several days
- wildfire smoke will continue to produce poor air quality especially in areas closer to central and western idaho
Issued at 141 PM MDT tue jul 28 2026
Will continue to have isolated to widely scattered afternoon and evening showers and thunderstorms today and wednesday. Most will be in higher elevations. Expect drying to move in thursday through early next week. Smoke is not as widespread as monday but still enough around especially in western areas to keep air quality advisories in effect in many areas. Will be slightly cooler tomorrow but will see significant warming thursday through saturday with many low elevations around 100 degrees by saturday once again. Begin to lose southwest flow aloft by sunday into early next week, so that should eliminate any monsoonal moisture for awhile. Will have very low humidity with windy conditions in many areas sunday as system moves through cooling temperatures a bit. Monday expected to be coolest day in long term with near normal numbers for a rare occurrence this summer.
Issued at 940 PM MDT tue jul 28 2026
Models show another round of virga showers arriving towards morning. Have introduced vcsh at most locations for the morning. Still kept sun dry for now with the thinking that the better moisture will remain south.
Issued at 200 PM MDT tue jul 28 2026
For a multitude of reasons, we are looking for critical to near- critical fire weather conditions for the next several days. We do expected another round of thunderstorms later today and into this evening. Isolated storms are expected across zone 476 and extending along the montana border through zone 411. A second area of storms will form across higher terrain across zones 413 and 427, extending up through the tetons. Coverage will be borderline scattered down south with gusts over 35 MPH possible especially with the more southerly storms. Storms to the north will be mostly dry, with more of a wet/dry mix down south. We will also be borderline for a warning due to winds and low humidity across the central mountains, with gusts in the 20-30 MPH range. One last surge of monsoon moisture will keep showers, and may a thunderstorm or two, around tonight...increasing during the day wednesday. Coverage tomorrow will be highly dependent on two things: cloud breaks after morning cloud cover and smoke.
Starting thursday, we are will see hotter and drier conditions return. We may see a few dry storms over the mountains thursday, but it looks bone dry after that heading through the weekend and into next week. We will see near-critical conditions thursday due to wind and low humidity across the mountains. Expect more of the same friday and saturday. The bigger impacts those day will likely be a return to hotter temperatures. Crews in the mountains will be in the 70S to near 90. Valley temperatures will be in the mid 90S to mid 100S. Look for increasing heat-related issues during this short stretch. Cooler weather will return starting sunday, however, this pattern change will not bring back monsoon moisture it appears. This is the typical ridge breakdown pattern, as low pressure skirting by brings the cooler conditions, but also stronger winds and a continued very dry airmass in place. Any monsoon push should remain to our south as the flow turns westerly vs southwesterly.
Issued at 1212 PM MDT tue jul 28 2026
Air quality has improved across the eastern half of the region and some of the air quality advisories have been canceled accordingly but still linger across the western half which includes the magic valley, parts of the arco desert and throughout the central mountains. See the alerts from idaho deq for additional information.