With the 6th month of 2022 in the books, its time to enter July. Typically, July is the hottest month of the year for Omaha with our highs often in the 80s and 90s, with our lows in the 70s. July can also be a wet month, with the average rainfall being between 3 and 4 inches. In this blog we look at our first glances at the general weather trends for July, as well as recapping June.
JUNE RECAP
June was a month with many twists and turns for Omaha. We began the month unusually cool with highs only in the 70s and 80s for several days, then the stove was turned on and near-record heat came to Omaha during the second and third weeks of the month. We generally rode the hot train through the end of the month, with a few cooler days interspersed between there.
Overall, we ended the month of June around 1 degree above the overall average high for June. The typical average high for June is 84.4 degrees, we ended the month in 2022 with an average high of 86.5 if you count the warm days with the cool start to the month. As for our low temperatures, we were right around average. The average lows for the entire month if 63.4, and we ended up at 63.5 for 2022. Meaning overall, June was relatively average temperature-wise.
It was rainfall where June faltered. On average, Omaha receives around 4.44 inches of rainfall, with June being one of the wetter months. Most of the month remained dry, save for a few days with thunderstorms. By the end of the month, Omaha picked up 2.95 inches of rain. Nothing to scoff at, but still around 1.5 inches drier than average.
Within the drier month were a few notable severe weather events. On June 7, hailstorms moved through the area dropping golf ball size hail on the Omaha metro and larger hail in the surrounding areas. During the overnight hours of June 14-15, clusters of severe storms brought damaging winds upwards of 100mph, baseball size hail, and three tornadoes to the region. Other than those two significant events, June was quiet. Will this quiet pattern remain into July?
FIRST LOOK AT JULY
Although we can not accurately predict the weather more than 7 days out, beyond the 7 day forecast we can look at the broader weather patterns and what that means for Omaha. For most of July we might remain under a ridging pattern, where a high pressure sets up to the south pushing the main jet stream to the north keeping the cool weather and thunderstorms away.
The temperature outlook for July issued by the Climate Prediction Center keeps most of the country in warmer than average conditions, thanks to that ridge that will set up. While not everyday will be a scorcher, expect more days in the 90s and warmer than typical for July.
As for rain chances, these look to continue to remain drier through July. That is not to say it will never rain in July, it certainly will, but not the amount of rain we typically see in July. This is bad news for the drought, which for a while has been kept at bay from eastern Nebraska into western Iowa but is slowly creeping back. Expect abnormally dry conditions to expand as July remains somewhat dry.
Take these trends with some leeway, they will not show the entire picture. As each day passes in July, keep updated with the forecast for those cooler temperatures and rain chances.
