Kansas City Weather: Excessive heat dome showing signs of cracks

Yesterday as I was analyzing the data I noticed a couple of interesting things as the heat dome was starting to weaken somewhat and shift slowly away from the region. The main thing was that there are some small weaknesses developing in the region in the atmosphere.

The heat dome, in a sense, is starting to get some small holes in it.

This means that there may be some small areas where the air is somewhat more buoyant. There are also signs of some mid-level lift later today and this evening in very isolated areas in the region.

What does this mean? There actually could be a few very random storms in the area later today. Perhaps tomorrow as well.

Hey, it’s better than starting with the heat, right?

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One sentence forecast: Another very hot day in the area with a small chance of an isolated shower/storm after 5PM.

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Forecast

Today: Mostly sunny with highs in the mid-to-upper 90s. There is a small chance of a storm after 5PM.

When this happened a couple of days ago in central Kansas, there was a severe storm. While highly doubtful for us, there will be a LOT of heat out there and weirder things have happened. Heat indices are likely in the 105-112° range.

Tonight: Fair and warm with lows in the mid-to-upper 70s

Tomorrow: About the same with highs in the 95-100°. Small risk of a late-day storm

Saturday: Rain chances are running about 30% but the combination of extra clouds and those chances with cooler air starting to flow in should keep highs in the 80s

Sunday: Rain chances in the morning… then partly cloudy with highs near 80°

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Discussion

So a couple of broad things to start. The remains of Harold may well play a factor in getting some rain into the region over the weekend. How much rain is still sort of questionable and depends on where the best moisture-laden part of the atmosphere ends up going.

My hope is for roughly 1/4″-1″ of rain, especially from the Metro southwards.

This is actually very important. Why? Well with the dry wonderful weather last week, and the steamy hot weather this week, it’s been dry after a wet first 10 days of the month.

The longer term thought for next week though is pretty dry overall, and I’m worried that we may be waiting until near or after Labor Day for another decent chance of rain.

While not to the extent that we’ve seen this week, after a cool down to near or below average temperatures for several days next week, we’re likely going to be making a run toward 90° for the Holiday weekend.

If we don’t get a decent rain from the remains of Harold by then, it will be VERY dry in the region.

Today the focus remains on the heat. Yesterday we topped off at 96° but there was a small reduction in the dew points, and as a result, the nastiest of the heat indices were not as crazy as earlier in the week.

Dew points instead of being in the lower 80s have come down into the mid-70s and have remained there this morning. My hope is that they come down a few more notches today thanks to a southwest wind in the afternoon.

So while it will still be hot, 95-100° or so and hotter on the west/south side, the heat indices may be closer to 105°+ this afternoon. Bad, but not as extreme as what we saw for the last five days.

Tomorrow may be about the same.

About the rain chances… again, yesterday I noticed some model data showing the mid-level lift being generated from some little disturbances that perhaps might generate later today to the southwest of the Metro and migrate near or south of the I-35 corridor.

Some of that data is still showing this today, which is giving the models that allow convection to form more readily that chance to still indicate some VERY isolated activity later this afternoon.

Here is the morning run of the HRRR for 6PM tonight:

A little something something. This though may or may not be realized, but I thought last night it was worth talking about, and I mentioned a chance of an isolated storm. The thing is, that with all the heat and juicy air out there, sometimes IF something forms it could be rather robust.

So that is on the table. It’s a small table, but IF something were to pop, there could be some gusty winds with it.

Like I said, it’s worth a mention so that no one can tell me where did this come from. Lol.

The heat and humidity should continue tomorrow as well. Again, just very small late day chances for rain.

High school football on the Missouri side gets going and there are some schedule alterations happening to take into account the heat, which is smart.

Then my focus is on the remains of Harold which will be a big deal in the Rockies for the next couple of days.

You can see it still has a nice swirl to it with some nice moisture in the upper levels of the atmosphere.

The remains of Harold will migrate northwards today and be along the UT/CO border tomorrow morning before moving more towards the east and by Saturday morning be in western Kansas.

From there though the tougher part begins because it may start to shear out a bit (weaken and break up) as it slowly moves through Kansas.

Hopefully though with enough lift still leftover as it moves across KS…it can generate some decent areas of rain out west and then that rain would come towards the region later Saturday into early Sunday.

With all this breaking down the heat dome and shoving it farther south the chances of rain will be increasing. Starting Saturday morning showers may be around.

I can’t rule out some rain for tailgaters for the football game at this point. The combination of that and the clouds coming into the region…means that Saturday will be a less hot day in the region.

This could be a big rain for Colorado again. 1-3″ are possible.

The heat dome is gradually shifting more southwards over the coming days. What this means is that after Friday we get a break, it also means a continued focus of extreme conditions towards the Deep South where the summer has been the hottest on record in many areas and this will clinch things for sure.

Look at the potential record highs that may be set and notice how things shift south over the coming 3 days.

Today

Tomorrow

Saturday

What a terrible summer down there. Even long time folks down there where it’s always hot and humid are wondering what the heck is going on this summer. Just day after day after day of grinding heat and humidity.

Back home, if you’re wondering how the summer has gone from a high temperature standpoint, here you go.