As August draws to a close, most of the lower 48 can expect near average temperatures. Exceptions include south Texas, Florida and the Rockies and Great Basin, where it will be warmer than normal. The Upper Midwest, Great Lakes and Northeast should be relatively wet; the rest of the country relatively dry.

This week starts wet in the east as a semi-stalled front stretches from the western Gulf of Mexico to Albany NY this morning. Frequent showers and thundershowers accompany this, with the maximum rainfall during the next few days expected over Mississippi , Alabama and Georgia. It only slowly weakens and sags to the SE as the upper trough supporting this weather slowly flattens and the supply of tropical air from the Gulf cuts-off. A new cold front slowly pushes south through the northern plains, Great Lakes and Northeast for the latter half of the week, acting as a focus for the development of a few strong thunderstorms in these areas. Temperatures should be slightly warmer than normal over the northern half of the country this week and slightly cooler in the south. The most pronounced anomalies are over the SE tomorrow where daytime highs will be short by 5-10 F, and the northern Plains and upper Great Lakes for the first few days this week where night time lows will be 10-15F above average.
A few surges of monsoonal moisture will bring showers and thunderstorms to New Mexico and Arizona most of this week and a weak low parked over Southern California this week will set off a few ...probably dry...thunderstorms over the Sierra this week before it lifts over northern NV at the end of the week. The Tropical Atlantic is pretty quiet with TD Erin in the Eastern Atlantic expected to peter-out tomorrow or Monday, and nothing else on the short-term horizon. Looks like a neutral week for NG.