There have been a few showers overnight with some massive rains well east of the region toward the St Louis area. This was expected as their atmosphere there was almost twice as loaded with moisture as is typical during early August.
When storms get going in that type of environment they can crank out the rains. They you add in training, where the storms follow roughly the same track and go over the same places time and time again…it adds up fast.
Today’s forecast, and really for the next few days is sort of the typical early August forecast. Heat, humidity (lots of that) and occasional storm chances will be around.
There really isn’t any one chance that looks higher than another and my continued hope is that the worst of the heat will be suppressed south and west of the metro, BUT there will be a ton of humidity out there and that means higher heat indices. Yesterday it felt like 115° out toward Lawrence and Topeka.
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One sentence forecast: Hot and humid with scattered showers/storms today.
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Forecast:
Today: Partly cloudy with scattered showers/storms possible. There may be a bot more coverage towards the afternoon. Highs near 90° with hotter conditions south and southwest of KC.
Tonight: Variable clouds and a few showers/storms are possible. Lows in the mid 70s
Tomorrow: About the same
Friday: About the same although there might be some more coverage to the rain
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Discussion:
Last night the fury of the heavy rains were towards eastern MO…between Columbia and St Louis. Data from this morning shows the 2 bands of heavy rain, the one from early Tuesday morning towards 65 highway near Sedalia etc and the other one towards Moberly, MO from earlier this morning.
Some real rain totals
Our weather here isn’t as volatile although there have been some showers overnight. Nothing nearly that dramatic though.
The boundary that separates the more intense heat from the usual summer heat is still lurking just towards the south and southwest of the region. Dew points of 70° or higher are contoured in green in the next map which is the surface map from 8AM
So the boundary and the dew points intersect near the region. South of the boundary, which is really a stationary front, temperatures should get to near 100° although clouds may play a role in that potential today
As we heat up today and as some lift out west moves towards the region there may be a recipe in place for some additional storms to develop in the afternoon on KS and spreading this way.
I don’t think there will be a lot of coverage out there but perhaps between that and the clouds and a SE wind…the worst of the heat may be held at bay.
Areas farther south and southwest may not be as lucky unless the clouds can really cut down on the heating potential.
There is a heat advisory in effect for the Metro.
So the atmosphere will be very unstable later today, with all the heat and humidity in place. We won’t be overly capped but it will need to be broken to get renewed convection which is possible with dew points in the mid 70s+ and temperatures into the 90s, especially on the KS side.
So that’s something to watch for, because there would be the risk of a few stronger storms in that set-up with gusty winds and some hail as the main risks.
There doesn’t appear to be a lot to hang our rain hats on for tomorrow with better chances perhaps early Friday morning of perhaps some more organized rains to move through the region.
Regardless there isn’t going to be a lot of change in the temperatures into the end of the week. Where the heat is nastiest there should be a backing off. This is because the center of the hot air generator will be backing off and moving from the southern Plains to the Desert SW over the coming days into the weekend.
You can see how the EURO model sort of backs off the heat towards next week.
and the 6-10 day forecast from the Climate Predication Center backs this up as well.
So that might be helpful.
Finally there’s this…
The feature photo comes from William Johnson from Sunday’s storms. Great lightning!
No blog tomorrow. I’ll be assisting in training with my colleagues at the NWS in the morning.
Joe
