'TIS THE PATTERN...

This week looks to be an active one around the Midwest. We talked about the ring of fire pattern setting up and leading to heat, humidity and storms. The first piece of that ongoing Sunday night/Monday with an MCS (mesoscale convective system) - more on that in Terry's last post.

This will be the first of a few MCSs that will move through this week. What's going on is we have a big ridge of high pressure in the upper levels of the atmosphere.

This pattern is going to lock into place for several days. This will lead to the heat and a lot of instability building during the daytime. The atmosphere will get capped during the afternoon and once the heat can relax at night, showers and thunderstorms will develop and move along the edges of this ridge. Here's a simulation of these storms moving through the Midwest over the next five days:

Storms are not going to be in the same areas every night, but where they do develop they have the potential to be strong to severe. The SPC is already monitoring this potential through Wednesday.

MONDAY:

TUESDAY:

WEDNESDAY:

This storms will primarily pose a threat for strong winds, heavy rain and hail. And most of this activity will occur in the late evening and overnight hours this week. During the day it is going to be HOT! HEre are the projected high temperatures for Monday afternoon:

Humidity is going to be high and heat indices may be approaching 100 in parts of the Midwest Monday afternoon. Tuesday will likely be even hotter

'Tis the pattern for heat and MCSs!

RK