DayWeather Podcast 7.21.2026

[00:00:00]Welcome to Tuesday. It is the 21st day of July, 2026.

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[00:00:32]Sometimes it's the little things and it's just subtle little changes in midsummer monsunal patterns like this that can tip the scales a little bit and take it from a general vanilla flavored monsoon to one that's a little more intense. And that's really the next three days. So, all I'm really going to focus on with today's video is the next 72 hours in the inner mountain west because the shift, the little things, this little modest shift in the high pressure ridge is really going to open the door as wide as it's been in a while, a long time to the deepest subtropical moisture, allowing the shift to the high pressure to occur. Is also going to weaken and destabilize the high pressure ridge enough to kind of tip the scales. So, the pulse thunderstorms I talked about yesterday are still going to be the rule of thumb, but they're going to be a little bit bigger and there's going to be the opportunity for showers and thunderstorms to continue into the evening and nighttime hours.

[00:01:33]So, this is going to put the risk of some flooding, believe it or not, in the midst of a drought. We're going to talk about flooding. We had a tragic flash flood tragedy in Utah this past weekend, late last week. And even in the middle of a drought, you can have flooding concerns and the monsoon can bring it on. And we'll show you where we're going to see those concerns here for the next 72 hours. Flash flooding, especially in the mountainous terrain of the inner mountain west, is going to reach its peak here over the next three days and it'll probably return later this month and into the month of August as well.

[00:02:10]Now, here's your classic Paul thunderstorm. This is just textbook from what we showed you yesterday with the downdraft, the mature stage of the thunderstorm releasing all of its rain at once. And so if I overlay the what I showed you yesterday with the graphic here, you go, it's the middle graphic of that pulse thunderstorm and other situations. Look, there's one west of Larmy. This one was on Sunday and around the Cheyenne area. pulse thunderstorms developed in the evening in some areas around southeastern Wyoming and northern Colorado. And there's another shot of a pulse thunderstorm just coming together.

[00:02:49]And of course, the heat I'm hoping that we maxed the heat yesterday with this heat wave. I think we did. Uh but yesterday was maybe the hottest for some of you a little bit further south into the region. Unfortunately, these pulse thunderstorms also producing lightning and starting fires. Although flooding is going to be more of a concern over the next three days, then those thunderstorms producing those fires.

[00:03:15]Let's hope we don't see any more of that activity. A great shot yesterday of precursors for thunderstorms. When you see these mid and high level cloudiness like this, this shows you the depth of the moisture from the surface all the way up. Now, this is high level moisture, but to get the monsoon really deep, you need the moisture in low, mid, and high levels. And it's certainly going to be in place all the way back into Lake Havasu, Arizona. And Steamboat Springs, Colorado yesterday, hoping for some rain there. Yes, even on the golf course. And yes, that is a puddle in New Mexico. Something that has been rare in New Mexico for a long time, a puddle.

[00:03:55]So, good to see that there. that red sky yesterday evening out in eastern Wyoming. You can see Laramie Peak there in the distance and around the Arlington Elk Mountain area. The clouds are getting heavier. They did spit out a little bit of rain yesterday, but it's really the next three days when things are going to get going, especially in central and south central Wyoming, portions of Colorado, back into Utah and Arizona. Grand Junction finally got some rain. Shortly after this photo was sent, that rain shaft and those thunderstorms got a little bit more active. In fact, flash flood warnings in areas to the south and southwest of Grand Junction yesterday evening. So, be aware of backyard isms, meaning if it hasn't happened in your backyard yet, that doesn't mean it hasn't happened to somebody. And the there'll be less backyardism as we go into the next three days. And this is why. You can see the deeper moisture right here showing up on the regular satellite photo. And overnight and into this morning, we had thunderstorms along this axis. In fact, the Larmy Regional Airport, which is west of Larmy, picked up well over a half inch of rain overnight and in town as well, although the amounts in town I think are less, but just overnight. And then this area right here, thunderstorms in the Panhal, Nebraska developed overnight. So even after sundown, we're going to keep this monsunal moisture plume feeding the showers and thunderstorms. So the southward shift to the hole continues elongating a little bit. And you can see the curl of the moisture now topping the ridge right here. And as I'll show you in a minute, when you get into these high pressure patterns, the winds aloft are extremely weak. So this is as of very early this morning, the radar showing still a lot of activity. And this axis right here is going to be one that's going to be active in the evening and overnight hours here in the days ahead and into the desert states. The monsoon is reaching its peak depth. This is where we were yesterday with the high. Notice the high pressure ridge sitting right on top of northwest Colorado. This is why yesterday the the temperatures probably peaked like they did. But even underneath this high pressure ridge and all the sinking air loft and all the stability you get, the depth of the monsoon moisture is enough to get the thunderstorms going, especially when you have that moisture over the mountains.

[00:06:24]And then a lot of this heat that heat that goes into the evening nighttime hours can maintain those thunderstorms.

[00:06:32]This is the shift. This is the sometimes it's the little things. The high moves into Texas by tomorrow. And you see these little indentations right here in the flow. It doesn't look like much.

[00:06:44]Sometimes it's the little things. The high pressure shifting, these disturbances rotating around. And the deepness, the plume of moisture, 200% or more of the average right here in this range here will be over ahead in the inner mountain west for the next three days. That's tomorrow. This is Thursday.

[00:07:07]So, for the next three days, we're going to see thunderstorms go like this. And what I'm going to do is get a little bit more in detail and show you not only the afternoon activity, but the evening and overnight activity. So, this is where the thunderstorms will be most numerous today. Between midnight and between 6:00 p.m. and midnight mountain time, you see they keep going. And even in the morning hours of tomorrow, Nebraska will again have overnight and morning thunderstorms. And even back here, notice the activity keeps going. This is Wednesday afternoon, Cheyenne Day for frontier days. Get ready for a very good chance of rain and see the heavy thunderstorms curling a little bit more and getting into more of eastern Colorado. Then into the overnight of Wednesday into Thursday morning, it looks like this. And there's that axis of thunderstorms again. So, the weather will repeat. And then this is Thursday.

[00:08:04]And then as we get into Thursday night and Friday morning, it's the same thing in the same locations. So for a 3-day period, it's the same area of thunderstorms in the same locations during the afternoon, evenings, and overnight hours. So the National Weather Service has a very large area of dark green here. These are all flood watches.

[00:08:27]Okay, this is all flood watches in anticipation of the monsoon being in the same location for three days and three nights in a row. What will likely happened will happen is there will be the green may shift a little bit more to the east tomorrow and a little bit more to the east on Thursday. Yes, even though a lot of these areas in green like here in Wyoming are extremely dry and yes, the ground will soak up some of it. However, when the rainfall rates are very very heavy, flash flooding is a concern. So, this is something to be on look for for the next 3 days. Of course, we need the rain, but there could be too much of it in a short period of time in some areas.

[00:09:11]So, this is where you want to keep your distance from creeks, canyons, oroyos.

[00:09:16]Don't camp next to a creek. Uh let this pattern wear itself out and hopefully your backyard will get rained on. Here are the winds aloft at 300 millibars, roughly 300 feet. So, let's take a look at the wind speeds here. So, this scale actually ends at 18 knots. So, you can see in that zone I talked about, especially here where we have the flash flood watches, the wa the flood watches in effect, the steering winds, as these thunderstorms grow vertically and get taller and taller, the steering winds are very weak. you got to get pretty far north before they get along going a little bit. So, what the thunderstorms will do, even these Paul thunderstorms aren't going to move very much. And sometimes you could have a thunderstorm develop in the in a similar location that the one previously developed. We call that training where a thunderstorm will be followed by another thunderstorm in a similar or same location. And with the winds off today and tomorrow and Thursday looking just like this, they'll be slow movers. This is by noon on Wednesday, mountain time. You can see the circulation of where the high is right there. So, it'll prove interesting over the next 72 hours. The rain, this is just a model. This is shown for display purposes only. Don't look at these numbers as the forecasted amount of rain that you'll get. But what it's showing you is the concentration right here of the brighter colors. And this arch right here in Nebraska into northeast Kansas into the northwest portions of Iowa should all be interesting to see. As well as down here, the models don't accurately predict what an individual thunderstorm will really do with its rainfall. This is kind of an averaging out of the next three days here of how the pattern will unfold with where the showers and thunderstorms will be. And with the additional cloudiness, the weakening and shifting of the high pressure, this will take a little bit of edge off the heat as well. So, it'll be interesting to see how the next three days unfold. We'll see you more and have more for you