Weather Lookup

Key Messages

- dangerous swimming conditions due to large waves and strong currents will continue through wednesday morning.

- rain chances return by friday and continue into saturday.

Discussion

Issued at 208 PM CDT tue jul 28 2026

Conditions are quiet and comfortable out there this afternoon. Temperatures range from the upper 70S to middle 80S with a nice breeze out of the NNE. Dry air advection from high pressure dropping in from the north is clearing away a lake-enhanced low stratus deck and leaving behind sunny skies. The clear skies and dry air will allow early morning lows to drop into the upper 50S to around 60 tomorrow, a little warmer in and around chicago. That high will be centered over the region tomorrow and thursday and keep rain chances away through the middle part of the week. Highs are forecast in the lower and middle 80S tomorrow and thursday.

Water vapor imagery this afternoon showcases an apparent shortwave pacific trough moving onshore over california. The wave will quietly lift northeast across the rockies over the next couple of days. By late thursday, as the wave gets sandwiched between two centers of high pressure, it will quickly wind up into a closed midlevel low over the northern plains before propagating southeast into the midwest. The surface response will be a deepening center of low pressure progged to move across il late friday into saturday. A system of showers will blossom around the developing low over the plains on thursday and rain could move into our area from the west as early as friday morning. Chances build from west to east friday afternoon and evening as coverage looks to overspread the area. Widespread showers are then expected friday evening into saturday morning. There's some uncertainty in what saturday afternoon/evening will look like, but more scattered showers are favored. Sometime saturday-sunday, the wave will become cutoff from the jet and wander around the lower midwest into early next week. While it's favored to stall over the tennessee valley and keep the recurring rain chances south of our area early next week, periodic showers may continue into portions of our cwa, especially southern cwa, on sunday and monday.

As far as thunderstorm chances go late this week, cool low level air wrapped up in the low will result in weak lapse rates through the column and little to no instability for noteworthy thunder coverage. Nonetheless, a few embedded storms will certainly be possible here and there. If the low can take a farther north track, then chances would increase for embedded, non-severe storms for areas in the low's warm sector, but such a track is an outlier among medium-range guidance. Despite the lack of thunder, deep layer moisture and dynamic forcing with the stacked low could result in prolonged periods of soaking rainfall; all available deterministic camps resolve a widespread 1-2"+ of QPF through sunday morning.

Afternoon temperatures are forecast in the upper 70S and lower 80S this weekend. A gradual warming trend is expected next week with highs favored to climb back toward 90 by the end of the week.

Doom

Aviation — 06Z Tafs Through 12Z Thursday

Issued at 1208 AM CDT wed jul 29 2026

Quiet, VFR flying conditions can be expected through the period, with north to northeast winds (near/around 10 KT this afternoon near the lake).

Castro