Even with some morning thunderstorms, the afternoon turned out steamy again on Monday with dew point temperatures well into the 70s. Such has been the case for much of this summer with warm and wet conditions dominating. The featured chart attempts to illustrate this by plotting a time series of 14 day standardized departures of average temperature and precipitation for Ames evaluated every seven days since about the beginning of May. The departures are expressed in sigma units to removal some of the seasonal variability. As the feature title states, we have spent most of the summer within the upper right quadrant (above average precipitation and temperature departures) on this chart. Remarkably even touching a three sigma precipitation departure twice. The good news for those sick of this weather pattern is that cooler and drier conditions are in the forecast after another sticky day on Tuesday.

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