Good afternoon bloggers,
It is a hot and humid day with the downtown airport already reporting 92 degrees with a heat index near 100 at 1 PM. This heat will not last long as a cold front is continuing to move steadily southeast. Here is the 1 PM position of the front below:
Look at the dewpoints (the green numbers). They are pooling and increasing near the frontal zone. And, the dewpoints are holding into the 70s just north of the front which may play a factor into creating post frontal convection (thunderstorms and showers). We haven't had too many days with a set up like this in 2008. I can think of one day that thunderstorms formed near the front and then around sunset thunderstorms developed north of the front in the less capped environment. And, with the moisture holding behind the front we may end up in a zone where thunderstorms develop between the 850 mb front and the surface front. This would place the KC metro area in that zone. We will just have to wait and see how this develops this evening. We need the rain, so I am hoping it organizes and brings at least a few of us some nice rainfall amounts. We have a 70% chance of this happening for a reason. There is still a 30% chance this doesn't quite develop this way leaving us dry.
With today's heat and humidity and no earlier thunderstorms the atmosphere will have a lot of energy ready to be released. The thunderstorms will likely be electrically active and possibly severe with the main threat being some isolated spots with large hail and damaging winds.
Gary