Good Sunday bloggers,
We are tracking the Saharan dust cloud and an area of thunderstorms on this Sunday. We still need the rain and we will take a look at the next few days as there will be a system to bring heavy rain, but where?
The sky this morning was odd for a summer morning as we had clouds from an outflow boundary (rain cooled air) that was sent south by thunderstorms. There was a thick haze as the Saharan dust cloud moves by.
This is a satellite image from 7:10 AM Sunday. There was another MCS (Mesoscale Convective System) moving across the Plains. This brought thunderstorms to northern Missouri and eastern Kansas, but out of the KC area. It appears the Saturday thunderstorms were the exception in reaching KC.
The rain on Saturday took us out of the top 5 driest June's ever, but we sit just 0.52" above the 5th driest June. We missed the rain today and there is one more chance before the calendar flips to July. We will talk about this last chance below. Note, the average rainfall for the entire month of June is 5.23". The 4.74" is through the 27th.
Here is a look at rainfall totals for June around the region. It really is a patchwork with some locations above average, some well below average, some near average. Keep in mind our average rainfall is 5.23" The monthly average to the east is about the same, but the western Plains average 3"-4" of rain. Needless to say, we could use more rain. Let's go through the forecast.
SUNDAY AFTERNOON: It will become partly cloudy, windy, hazy, hot and humid with highs around 90. The haze will be thick as the main part of the Saharan dust cloud moves by. The wind will be south at 15-25 mph.
SUNDAY NIGHT: It will be breezy, warm and humid with lows struggling to drop below 80. The wind will be south at 10-20 mph.
MONDAY: It will be windy, very warm and humid with increasing clouds as a system tracks in from the south. There will be just a few thunderstorms associated with it in Arkansas. Notice there are thunderstorms in Minnesota and Wisconsin with another system. This system will drift south and fall apart. We will see highs 85-90 and the haze will be less as the main part of the Saharan dust cloud moves north and weakens.
TUESDAY-WEDNESDAY: The system from the south will become quite a ball of water in eastern Missouri. It almost looks like a hurricane. It also looks like it will stay east of our area. We will watch it as it becomes a "cut off low, weatherpersons woe." This means it is cut off from the main flow and will be wandering around. So, if it wanders 100 miles farther west, we could get into the rain. The chance of that is at 20% or less as of this moment. The affect we will see from this system is more clouds and more of an easterly wind which will keep the higher heat away. However, the humidity will be sky high. Lows will be in the 70s with highs in the 80s.
RAINFALL FORECAST THROUGH 8 AM THURSDAY: Well, we are forecast to see a lonely 0.01" while eastern Missouri to southern Illinois has the potential to see 1" to 5" of rain. Right now this seems like the most likely scenario, but we will watch this odd system and see if it can wander a bit west.
It still looks like July 3rd and 4th will be mostly dry with highs in the 80s and lows in the 60s.
Have a great week and stay healthy.
