This Week in Weather — August 2, 2026

Rearview

The week's most concentrated severe weather moment came just after 8 p.m. EDT Saturday, August 1, when the Cincinnati forecast office (ILN) issued tornado warnings in rapid succession across the Ohio-Indiana border region. Darke County, OH and Boone and Kenton counties in northern Kentucky were warned at 8:26–8:28 p.m. EDT, followed by Montgomery County, OH at 8:52 p.m., then Miami and Montgomery counties together at 9:14 p.m., and Miami County again at 10:04 p.m. EDT. Randolph County, Indiana received its own warning from the Indianapolis office (IND) at 8:30 p.m. EDT. Six tornado warnings in roughly 90 minutes, concentrated in the corridor between Dayton and Cincinnati — a geography that has seen this before, but not without consequence.

NOAA

The week's total storm report ledger closed at 27 confirmed tornadoes, 171 hail reports, and 1,346 wind reports. Illinois led all states with 220 combined reports. North Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky, and Virginia each logged over 100 — a distribution that points to a convective axis running well east of the Mississippi, with the Southeast's Atlantic slope generating substantial activity alongside the Midwest.

Across 2,062 NWS warnings issued nationally, flash flood warnings (296) and flash flood watches (394) together rivaled the severe thunderstorm warning count (894), suggesting that rainfall rates were as consequential as wind and rotation in many events.

On July 28, a M6.8 earthquake struck near Uto, Japan — the week's largest seismic event globally. Two M5.7–5.8 events in a remote part of northwestern China (191–192 km northwest of Oula Xiuma) rounded out the significant earthquake list.

U.S. Navy / MC3 Alexander Tidd

Space weather was quiet. The week's peak Kp index was 0. An M3.2 solar flare peaked on July 26 at 15:28 UTC, but produced no documented geomagnetic impact.

Roadmap

NOAA (GOES-7) / NASA

The dominant feature shaping the next seven days across the contiguous U.S. is a broad upper-level ridge anchored over the southern Plains and extending into the Rockies. Dallas is forecast to average 103°F for the week with essentially no precipitation — 0.01 inches total, and a peak probability that barely reaches 5% on August 7. Denver sits at 98°F average highs with similarly negligible moisture. This is not a pattern that breaks easily; the ridge is suppressing convective initiation across the interior West and South Plains through the entire forecast window.

The Northeast and Southeast are in a different regime. A persistent moist, unstable airmass along the Atlantic seaboard is being periodically disturbed by shortwave energy rotating around the northern edge of the ridge. New York City averages 89°F through the week, with 1.98 inches of total precipitation and a 52% peak probability on August 3 — a Monday afternoon event worth tracking for anyone managing outdoor logistics. Atlanta averages 90°F with 0.87 inches total; the highest probability there is 66% on August 4, which lines up with a shortwave passage that should focus convective development along the piedmont and foothills during peak heating hours.

The Midwest gets the quietest week of any populated CONUS region. Chicago averages 80°F with only 0.29 inches of precipitation and a 53% peak probability on August 5 — a Wednesday event, likely tied to the same shortwave energy affecting the Northeast earlier in the week as it tracks east-northeast. Severe weather potential looks limited; the combination of modest instability and fast system motion tends to favor brief, wind-driven convection rather than sustained supercell activity.

San Francisco posts 78°F average highs with zero measurable precipitation forecast — consistent with the region's climatological dry season and the ridge keeping any Pacific moisture well offshore.

London's 77°F average high is notably warm for early August. The North Atlantic jet stream has been displaced poleward, a configuration that has allowed continental high pressure to dominate Western Europe intermittently this summer.

On the Radar

• The Monday, August 3 convective window in the Northeast and the Tuesday–Wednesday progression into the Southeast deserve specific attention for anyone in flood-prone terrain; the same shortwave responsible for elevated precipitation probabilities will be moving through a region that already absorbed meaningful rainfall this past week.
• Dallas-area heat at or above 103°F through the week puts heat index values in dangerous territory during midday and afternoon hours — hydration and shade access are operational concerns, not precautionary ones.
• The M6.8 near Uto, Japan on July 28 is worth following for aftershock activity; the Uto Peninsula sits on a complex fault system and sequences of this magnitude in that region have historically produced M5+ aftershocks in the days following the main event.