North Dakota’s Severe Weather Risk This Week

We could have a bumpy ride in the Bismarck Mandan area on Tuesday.

Thunderstorms are possible over a good share of the state and a few of those could become severe.  Much of central North Dakota appears to be in the bullseye for these potentially strong thunderstorms.

The map below is for the severe weather outlook for Tuesday, July 18th across the country.

The main threat in our area will be damaging winds up to 60 miles per hour and hail up to ping-pong size.  We could see some heavy rain with these storms as well.

Much of the state has been lacking rainfall of late, so we could certainly use a shot of rain.  As you can see by the map of late, at least a 1/3 of the state is abnormally dry, and drought is starting to creep into the northeast and a small part of northwest North Dakota.

The rest of July for Bismarck Mandan and the rest of North Dakota looks very dry with virtually no chances of rain.

Temps will also be heating up as we head into the later part of July with mostly upper 80s and 90s that could accelerate drought conditions.

Looking at the long-range forecast for August, it looks to be more of the same with very few mentions of rain.

As I've said many times before, we'll always take the rain when we can get it in North Dakota.  Hopefully, we'll get under a good cloud tomorrow (minus the severe weather).