Good Tuesday blog readers,
It's day two and the final day of our heat advisory. The advisory is still in place until 8 p.m. for heat indices near 110° yet again this afternoon. Our high temperature today won't get quite as high as it did yesterday but the humidity is still adding to the mix today and keeping us steamy. Yesterday we reached 98° making it the hottest day of 2024... so far.
We do have a few showers starting to pop this afternoon, but they shouldn't bring in a severe weather risk. These storms are hit or miss and if you've been lucky to get under one or near one, you may experience a 5° cool down but that is about it. The bigger cool down arrives overnight with the cold front passage.
Tonight
Strong to severe storms are possible as a cold front moves through the region. This system will prompt rain from north to south and will favor our Missouri residents over our Kansas folks. The SPC has placed us in a level 2 threat for severe storms with our main threat being focused on wind gusts up to 60 mph. Some hail is possible, but this will predominantly be a wind driven storm event.
Our severe window will open after midnight and strong to severe storms remains possible through sunrise Wednesday. Here is a look at how radar could be shaping up around 12 a.m.
This system has some confidence concerns though, the track has been a little inconsistent, and some of us might get skipped by rain. Like I said, expect this to favor Missouri over Kansas. Rain totals may stay under 1" for many, but a few spots may get more depending on how the front sets up.
Wednesday - end of June
The bigger news is this cold front will bring us back to normal temperature-wise for a bit. No, 90 degree heat is not normal this early on in the season. We are sliding back into the 80s for Wednesday and Thursday. By Thursday night into Friday though our next storm system arrives with a boost of heat and humidity ahead of storms. Expect stormy weather to return Friday, but it will leave us with a stellar weekend forecast.
July Preview
While temperatures look to close the month of June near normal, there's a heat dome building back over the Plains for the first week of July.
We are expecting 90s to return and hit the ground running with a sticky heat and humidity combo for Independence Day, seems about right though, it's not the Fourth of July without some heat! But there is also a system looking to trek across the country right around July 4 that could stir up some storms and give us a day or so of heat relief.
The main set up for the month of July will be watching where heat domes set up shop, but this year it may be a split decision with hotter than average temps forecast to our west and to our east. the Climate Prediction Center's (CPC) outlook for July is for above average temperatures across the country but with the set up favoring heat domes west and east, Kansas City might get through the dog days of summer just a 'little hot'.
The bad news about heat domes building to our west and to our east is it could set up a blocking pattern for storms. The CPC is forecasting a drier than normal July for this reason. From April-September we get about 70% of our annual rain in Kansas City, so while July being a little extra hot is not too far off trend... July being dry... is a different story. We typically see 4.58" of rain in July, and to put that into perspective our rainiest month, which is May, we see 5.32" of rain.
So in order to get rain this July, we will be watching for the right gulf flow and to be located on the edges of heat domes to be the right combination to bring rain into our forecast. This set up is not favorable to steady rain and tends to be more short term pop up style storms.
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