WX Blog from 30,000 Feet…Really I Need a Life!
Good morning and thanks for stopping by the FOX 4 weather blog. Every so often you just have to see how something works, and today (Tuesday) that’s what I’m doing as I’m blogging from 30,000 feet. This is actually pretty cool to be wired in the skies.
After highs yesterday in the low 90s, Tuesday’s highs will be tempered somewhat, which should continue for the next several days before the heat returns over the weekend. A cooler easterly flow has developed and has temporarily pushed the hotter air back out to the west and SW of the region. The “official” high yesterday was 93°, which was the warmest day we’ve seen so far this year. The humidity, while thick in the AM hours, really dropped off nicely in the PM hours as the drier air started to move into the region thanks to the north winds. Strange, in a way, that we heated up so much with a north wind, but we talked about that over the weekend as the hotter air was descending from NE into our region.
Today though (Tuesday) is a different story as somewhat cooler air has moved into the region. The winds are more from the east and that is circulating air toward us from the Great Lakes area.
The numbers in RED are the temperatures.
You can also see the influence of the cooler air aloft as temperatures at five thousand feet have dropped off nicely. Here is the map:
The temperature at Topeka this morning was 16C or about 60°F –certainly cooler than the +20°C or so we had on Monday.
This airmass will slowly modify over the next few days and the winds will turn more toward the SE then south allowing the warmer weather to move back in!
Unfortunately, in my brief look at the data this morning, the rain chances still look minimal for awhile, although there are suggestions that we should get something a bit more decent next week, but we’ve seen those “suggestions” before. 
Finally don’t forget about the transit of Venus today. More on that here.
That’s it from 30 thousand feet. Who else would blog for you from an airplane?
Joe
