Good morning bloggers,
It may seem subtle, but this is likely going to be a fascinating week of weather for our local area. A backdoor front will be approaching us this evening. It will likely be near 100 degrees ahead of this front. This should provide the energy for a very heavy rain event for someone. But which local area will be affected by the heavy thunderstorms?
What is a heatwave? In KC, a heatwave is defined to be 3 days in a row where the temperature reaches 95 degrees or higher. It was 91 Saturday, 95 Sunday, and likely around 96 or 97 today. So, today is only day two of the "hot spell". This can't be called a heatwave until it reaches that third day in a row.
Tomorrow, we may get some relief, just in time. But, it is still somewhat suspect on how far south the backdoor cold front will get. Look at last night's GFS model. I drew in the backdoor front and it is forecast to be just southwest of Kansas City by 1 PM Tuesday. This would shift the winds to the east and northeast, providing a slight cool down. And, thunderstorms may form near the front. The last couple of model runs have been trying to keep the thunderstorms northeast of the front, just missing Kansas City. We will talk a lot more about this thunderstorm potential on our newscasts today and tonight on NBC Action News.
Last night KCI reported an 80 degree dewpoint at 8 PM. That is extreme humidity. The dewpoints are back down to a respectable 70 this morning, but it is still rather muggy outside.
The tropics are starting to get active. Bertha was a named storm for a long time, for much of this month, and now we have Cristobal and Dolly. Look below at the forecast tracks for the tropical storm force wind speeds. Dolly will likely threaten Texas, and Cristobal will likely head out to sea. We will also track Dolly tonight on our newscasts.
Have a great start to the week. Our new Forecast Center and NBC Action News news set is beginning construction today. You can actually watch it live! Here is the link to our studio camera. The construction should begin sometime this morning:
http://www.nbcactionnews.com/studio
Gary