Warm Temps With More Chances For Storms

The upper air flow remains mostly from the west to east near the state this morning and should transition to more of a northwest flow by Thursday and Friday.  This will be favorable for bringing a few storms into the Thursday night into Friday.   And a few storms are located across central Kansas this morning moving mostly east.    Another area of storms are located across part of northwestern Kansas.   This batch may also turn southeast soon.   An area of congested clouds appears on the imagery this morning across part of eastern OK.  This means a few storms may also develop across part of northern OK this morning.   Bottom line:   We’ll need to keep a mention of a few storms across part of northern OK today and also Thursday morning, but the higher signal still appears for Thursday night into Friday morning.   Temperatures will remain warm with muggy conditions.   Highs should be in the mid-90s with a heat index nearing 104.   Current observations support a windy day with south winds from 15 to 30 mph. 

WARN Interactive Radar

The main upper level system located across southern Canada continues to move eastward over the Great Lakes with a surface boundary draped across part of Kansas this morning.   This front should slowly drop southward later today but will remain north of the state.   Another potential round of late night and early morning storms will be possible Thursday morning but the highest signal remains for the Thursday night period as the front may slide into northern OK.  As this happens, storms will be likely to develop across the northern half of the state and will drop southeast through Friday morning.   The thermal and moisture profile will support the possibility of a few strong to severe storms will damaging winds the main threat.   Pockets of moderate to heavy rainfall will also remain possible with some 1 to 3 inch totals in some, but not all locations.

Weather Alerts

The mid-level ridge of high pressure will be positioned to the southwest of the state Thursday and Friday but is expected to expand back across the area this weekend.   The next upper level system across the intermountain region will allow the front to move northward as a warm front Saturday morning.   A few storms will remain possible during this period but should lift northeast of the state by the mid-morning period.    Temperatures will respond into the mid-90s Saturday and the upper 90s Sunday.   The data suggest highs will be near 100 early next week with heat index values nearing 105 to 109.   Heat advisories will be possible next week.   Normally when this ridge develops during this time of the year, the rain chances will basically “shut off” until sometime in August, other than a pop up late day storm across far eastern OK.    While next week does appear to represent a hot and dry period, the possibility of the ridge weakening and moving can’t be ruled out.   We’ve seen the ridge attempting to develop several times this year but has never been able to remain established for longer than a week.    Stay tuned!

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Thanks for reading the Wednesday morning weather discussion and blog.

Alan Crone