Good morning bloggers,
We have not had a heat wave since July 17-20, a four day heat wave, two years ago in 2019. And, it has not reached 100 degrees in over 3-years at KCI Airport (July 12, 2018). A heat wave in KC is defined to be three consecutive days of 95° or higher. It was 95° yesterday, and our forecast is for it to reach 97° today and 100° on Thursday.
A change, a rather significant change in the pattern is showing up for later this week. The lawns need a good 1" to 2" drink of water, and one of the models came out overnight with just that:
Look at the high pressure area just north of the USA/Canada border valid Sunday morning. This map below shows my plotted version of this map:
That is a pretty strong high pressure area for early August. Yes, Sunday morning is August 1st, can you believe that? But, it is still a summer cold front and a summer cool air mass. Look at the forecast temperatures by Tuesday morning:
We may very well drop into the 50s by Tuesday morning. I am looking forward to the cooler change to bring some refreshingly cooler air in here early next week.
Now, it may come with those thunderstorms. The risk of severe weather in our area may be quite low this weekend, but look at the risk today over the upper Midwest:
This is a level 4 out of 5 risk of severe thunderstorms in late July. This risk fits the LRC quite well, as we are in that part of the pattern that has produced the most significant severe weather in 2021, in previous cycles. Look at the tornado risk today:
Storm chasers may be way up north in Wisconsin today. I will be monitoring this on KSHB-41 News today and tonight.
By the time the thunderstorms get closer to us later this week and early this weekend, the risk will go way down as there isn't as much winds aloft to support the significant severe weather that exists today near the USA/Canada border. Hopefully we get the rain. Here is the rainfall forecast from last night's American Model (GFS):
This shows that late Saturday night and early Sunday morning MCS. It is suspect and my confidence is quite low that it will happen near KC. It will likely develop, but it could easily be a few counties farther north or south. This is one of the things we will be predicting on our weather forecasts today and tonight!
Thank you for spending a few minutes reading the KSHB-41 Weather Blog featuring the LRC. We hope you have a great Wednesday.
Gary
