
A heat wave over the Southwest will intensify late week, peaking and expanding into the Intermountain West and northern High Plains this weekend. Severe thunderstorms and heavy rain are expected over portions of the Plains and Mississippi Valley tonight, which will shift to parts of the Upper Midwest and mid-Mississippi Valley Friday. Monsoonal showers and flooding persist in the Desert Southwest. Read More >
The following graphics depict the number of days that a given site has reached 90 degrees or more this year (on the x-axis) and the annual precipitation to date (on the y-axis). Also included are prior years, color coded by decade, and the 10th, 25th, 50th (i.e., median), 75th, and 90th percentiles for each variable. These graphics show us how hot and dry (or cool and wet) the current year is compared to the period of record and may be useful in drought monitoring.
Many of these sites are maintained by cooperative observers, a program which you can learn more about here. We are in the process of quality controlling past data, so some of these values are subject to change. To view the percentiles, hover over a location on the left after choosing the desired region of interest along the top of the page. Data courtesy of the Applied Climate Information System.