Good Sunday bloggers,
Happy 5th of July. We started the day with haze and fog. This was due to a combination of fireworks smoke and fog. They got trapped at the ground due to almost no wind and an inversion. An inversion is warmer air over colder air which is stable, so you do not get mixing.
Now to the weather for the week ahead. We can break down the weather this week into three groups.
GROUP 1 (SUNDAY-MONDAY): Each day will start mostly clear, warm and humid with lows around 70. It will not be as hazy Monday morning unless we have a second night of widespread fireworks. Each afternoon will become partly cloudy with cumulus clouds as highs climb to around 90 with a light wind. The humidity will be high and there will be isolated, mostly afternoon and evening showers and thunderstorms. If you get one, you will experience a 5-15 minute period of very heavy rain, a cool down to the 70s, lightning and a 20-40 mph wind gust.
GROUP 2 (TUESDAY-WEDNESDAY): These days will have less than a 5% chance of seeing an isolated shower/thunderstorm. They will be mostly dry, hot and humid with highs in the low 90s. There will be afternoon cumulus clouds and a bit more of a breeze from the south at 10-20 mph.
GROUP 3 (THURSDAY-FRIDAY): The pattern will set up to one in which thunderstorms will form in the western Plains during the afternoon and evening. They will then become large thunderstorm complexes overnight as they track east and southeast. They would arrive here late at night or during the morning. The new data has a nice round of thunderstorms moving through at 4 AM Thursday. Confidence is high that there will be these large thunderstorm complexes. Confidence is low on their track at this time. If we get one, they could bring 1"-2" of rain along with the chance of damaging winds.
The thunderstorms will keep the high heat to the west as they bring clouds and rain cooled air. You can see we have highs in the 80s with 100-105 in southwest Kansas Thursday. Our humidity, however, will be out of control.
FRIDAY MORNING: There will be the chance for another complex of thunderstorms. This data has less Friday morning. This means we could get the thunderstorms both mornings, one of the mornings, or we could get missed both times. We will follow this all week.
FRIDAY AFTERNOON: We will see the heat creep this way as highs reach 85-95. Since this data has less thunderstorms Friday morning it heats us up more into the low 90s. There was still enough rain to keep the crazy heat away. Look at the highs in western Kansas, around 110! This may be a bit overdone, but who is counting when it gets that hot.
SATURDAY: The heat will make a move east as the 110° high temperatures move into south central Kansas. We would get into the low and mid 90s. This data has a cold front moving through Saturday night just as the high heat would get here for Sunday. We will watch this closely as the front could end up surging farther east allowing the very hot weather to arrive here. We would not reach 110, but we would make a run at 100, IF the front does not make it. Right now we lean with the front.
Have a great week ahead and stay healthy.
