My take on the upcoming heat

You sit at home watching your favorite news station today waiting for the weather to come on before you head out. You hear the meteorologist you rely on say 99 degrees for Friday, July 10 with a heat index of 105+. You head to work thinking that Friday was going to be near 100 degrees, then you hear another forecast on the radio saying Friday will be 95 degrees, then another forecast saying the high will be 91 degrees. Who is right?

This a problem we will be having this week as there are many uncertainties as to the highs over the next week. Just to show an example here is a list of forecast highs for Friday from forecasters in Kansas City (not to mention names)

99 Degrees
96 Degrees
95 Degrees
92 Degrees

As you can see the temperatures range from near 100 to near 90 degrees and it is like this for every single day this week. Well lets see where I am leaning to in that range of temperatures. Here is the 500 mb map for Friday:



The air will be calm, sinking, and warming under the high pressure, but look where the center is located. This means the hottest air will lie acrosswestern Kansas and Oklahoma where highs will likely reach 110 degrees. Our area is located in the circle of high height, so it will likely be pretty warm here too. I am thinking highs may be in the mid to upper 90's around the area on Thursday and Friday with heat indicies up to maybe 105+ But the next model may shift us to the edge with some thunderstorms and we could be in the low end of the scale with highs in the upper 80's and lower 90's. So dont be surprised if tomorrow I going with highs Thursday and Friday near 90 degrees.

But before we get to Thursday and Friday we have to deal with Wednesday (today) Highs today should top out in the upper 80's and low 90's with sunshine. Once again there will be numerous cumulous clouds popping up around noon through the afternoon, and some of these could build into a few showers and thunderstorms with heavy downpours. These isolated showers will diminish overnight. There is really a slight chance of thunderstorms everyday this week.

Now will we get a break from this heat, there is a chance as a cold front may make it into the area Saturday night or Sunday morning. Highs Saturday looks to be in the 90's once again, but Sunday has potential to "cool" into the 80's especially if we can get some thunderstorms with the front.

Next week is looking quite WARM, but I will talk about that later.

Alex Pickman