MILWAUKEE - Rainfall precipitation from Friday, July 31st through Saturday, August 1st ranged 2" to 7"+ across southeast Wisconsin. This comes just days after severe storms brought another several inches of rain on Monday, July 27th.
While heavy rain has impacted portions of the cheese state in a weeks' time, one viewer posed the question of why this deluge of rain occurred all at once.
A look into July rainfall
By the numbers:
Let's take a look back at July 2026, where very little rain accumulated during the first three weeks, causing drought conditions to become widespread across the state. July was looking at being the driest on record for Milwaukee. That changed during the last week of July when two low-pressure systems dumped rain as they passed through.
Why was there little rain?
Big picture view:
You may recall meteorologists talking about a heat dome in place that created hot and humid conditions in July, along with many dry days. This caused an area of high-pressure to sit in place for days on end that prevented the greater Milwaukee area from experiencing any storm systems to bring rain.
The big change happened
Dig deeper:
Once the heat dome pattern was able to break, the high-pressure moves east. This allowed the jet stream to move south again, bringing the next few storm systems with it to Wisconsin.
Why was there a lot of rain?
Dig deeper:
These systems were able to tap into added moisture already in the air as well as transport more of it from the Gulf of Mexico. This gave these low-pressure systems ability to produce heavy amounts of rain.
Sometimes, these systems are slow moving, which prolongs the period it rained. That also leads to higher rainfall totals. These types of events are not uncommon, but having two periods of blocking heat domes back to back in July isn't typical in the Wisconsin area.
The Source: This story was produced in Milwaukee. Information is from the FOX6 Weather Experts.