SUMMER IS ALIVE AND WELL...
The first week of August around the central Midwest was about as good as you could hope for. Cool temperatures, low humidity, and dry sunny conditions...it doesn't get much better than that. Here's the temperature departures reflecting the extent of the cool air.
Here's the total rainfall. What little fell was confined to the southern third of my area.
The party is over for the picture perfect weather as a return of southerly winds brings summery temperatures and humidity back into the picture. The leading edge of that air mass is arriving now and it may bring some isolated showers and storms Saturday but they are likely to be few and far between. The EURO is certainly not very excited about amounts showing these totals through the day.
Once that little nuisance disturbance departs, Saturday night and Sunday look largely dry as the focus turns to heat and humidity. That is expected to peak Sunday afternoon when the EURO has heat index values reaching the range of 98-103, worst in the southwest half of my region.
When the heat index reaches that level chances are good there is plenty of instability for storms and that is certainly the case as evidenced by CAPE (convective available potential energy). Even though the gun is loaded locally with potential energy, there's no trigger to initiate storms along with the prohibitive nature of a stout CAP (warm air aloft)
That means storms that do initiate will fire in Minnesota where they will be very active with severe weather and heavy rains possible. SPC now indicates a slight risk of severe weather Sunday almost to the Iowa border.
Those storms eventually make a push south into my northern counties Sunday night but by then the forcing and instability weakens and only scattered and much weaker storms remain. Some of those will be around late Sunday night and into Monday but the EURO keeps the heaviest rainfall amounts well to the north.
Beyond Monday some rain chances exist much of next week (especially in southern sections) but at least for now nothing that appears organized or overly heavy. As is often the case this time of year, any rain that falls looks hit and miss and scattered in nature. Some lucky spots will pick up some good downpours but they will be the exception as opposed to the rule. Temperatures should be far more representative of early August with readings near to above normal with Monday looking to be the steamiest. The EURO has this for temperature departures Saturday through Thursday of next week.
All things considered, summer is alive and well and back where it belongs. Have a solid weekend and roll weather...TS
