With the calendar now turned into August, we have fully reached the last half of the warmest part of the year. Average high temperatures have been slightly above average for the June through July period. The featured chart looks into if this portends what may happen during the August through September period. The chart presents the yearly combination of average high temperature for Ames for the sixty days prior to and after 1 August. Of note for this plot are the quadrant frequencies, which indicate a persistence to having both periods either below average or above average each year.

Agronomy Hall at Iowa State University hosts a PurpleAir air quality sensor. Unfortunately, wild fires and the associated smoke continues to be a problem plaguing much of the country. The featured chart presents the daily range of PM2.5 (2.5 micrometers or less) Air Quality Index (AQI) for 2026. The chart colors represent the ranges of values associated with the given AQI rating. The wild fire smoke has certainly been noticeable over Iowa these past number of weeks. The hazardous levels were reached just over a week ago on 24 July.

In the category of life imitating art, yesterday (4 August 2026) was the future date referenced in the 1950 short story "There Will Come Soft Rains" written by Ray Bradbury. While some Iowans did experience something more than soft rains, a majority of the state received something much softer. The featured chart presents one minute interval data from the ISU Soil Moisture station just west of Ames. The bottom panel shows the one minute interval rainfall totals. The station utilizes a classic tipping bucket to report rainfall in 0.01 inch increments (one tip of the automated mechanism). So the minute totals are not a true minute accumulation as the time to generate one tip can take more than one minute. The label above the plot provides the maximum rainfall accumulations over various intervals of time. Those maximum values are not excessive at all and likely quality as a "soft rain" for most folks!