 Welcome to the Longmont weather forecast for the week beginning Wednesday, July 8th. I'm chief meteorologist John Ennsworth coming to you this time from the Glenwood Park Library. So you might hear some strange sounds in the background. This week the last quarter moon occurs on July 13th, Monday, and that's the wrong moon picture. Sorry, but I got to keep going. Moon rises at midnight and sets it just afternoon. Well, it's just going to get hot. I got to lead with the lead. There's a big high-pressure system setting up at the surface easily visible on this Wednesday map. But what's going on above is what's really going to dictate the heat. So we have a high-pressure center starting to really strengthen over northern Mexico with a ridge up into Canada. We've got a few lingering short waves wandering around, but they aren't going to matter much really soon. Okay, and that same pattern superimposed over the water vapor satellite image from Tuesday. You can see the reds and the oranges in the desert southwest and out on the plains. Moisture is getting cut off by this ridge as a little thread of moisture right up the spine of the Rockies up into Montana. Those allowed for afternoon thunderstorms on Tuesday. As for smoke, the fires are much more under control in the southwest and the air flows not such that it can bring much up into Colorado. So for Wednesday, we see the ridge is even getting larger. Here's the high-pressure center down here, northern Mexico still. There's a little shortwave cutting through Montana, but it's way far north of us. This is really part of that same ridge. By Friday, this will be our hottest day over the next week. We have the high-pressure center drifting northward into the United States. We are right under the spine of this thing. Again, a little bit of shortwave action going up in Montana, but this is a lot of air piling up and sinking, compressing and heating. Just as a snapshot for Friday afternoon, the temperatures are above average, nearly statewide. Right here, downstream of the Rockies, see a little belt of even warmer air. Some of these temperature anomalies are approaching 20 degrees above normal. And this is because in addition to the sinking and compressing of the air over the entire region, we're getting some downslope flow. We have sort of a weak west to southwest flow. So heat on top of heat. For precipitation over the next five days, maybe a few afternoon showers out on the eastern plains, we are high and dry in the mountains and front range. Looking all the way out into next week to see what we're in store for, and we're in store for the same pattern. There's the high still in New Mexico, giant ridge, extending up into the United States. There's a passing strong trough up in Canada and Montana and the Dakotas, but it really isn't going to be close enough to do anything to us or for us. Looking at the 10-day GFS ensemble, the normal high temperature is now 90 at the beginning of this period and just maybe climbing a degree or so. The nighttime temperatures are starting about 53 and still climbing a little bit. We're starting to peak in the normal high and low temperature extremes for the year. The actual temperature forecast here shows it popping above normal almost every day, with nighttime temperatures far above normal, kind of fit an average temperature through this time period, and the weekend is definitely the hottest time of this next 10-day period. As for precipitation, there's almost nothing. So looking out, we have not seen a graphic like this in this briefing yet. With 100-degree temperatures, 103 on Friday, 102 on Sunday, it is just going to really roast and chances of rain are nearly zero until maybe early next week might get just enough moisture for one shower someplace in a county nearby. For more frequent weather updates, take a look at the Longmont Leader at LongmontLeader.com and get local news. This has been Chief Meteorologist John Insworth. Keep looking up.