Cool weather ending – time for summer fun!

The past few days have been a nice cool (and finally drier) start to meteorological summer, which began June 1. I personally enjoyed the 70s a great deal.

However, if you’ve been waiting on REAL summer – some heat and humidity – we’ve got great news!

Signs of summer have been appearing in the southern Plains the past couple of days (temps into the low 90s) as an upper-level ridge has established itself over that part of the country. That ridge will build east towards the Mid-South, bringing warmer weather with it.

High temps today (Tuesday) were pleasant into our neck of the woods, but show signs of warming to the west. Graphic courtesy WeatherBell Analytics.

However, we’ll be on the eastern edge of the ridge, which means we won’t get the full brunt of it, and in fact, it’ll put the area in “northwest flow” as we head into the weekend.

The upper level pattern on Saturday features northwest flow as a ridge of high pressure to our southwest builds east into the region, increasing temperatures.

As storms form in the Plains, this northwest flow pattern creates a track for those storms that moves them towards the region from the northwest. While we can’t time any potential thunderstorm complexes this far out, our rain chances increase slightly this weekend. With heat and humidity building as well, it will make for a summer-like pattern over the region.

As we head into early next week, the upper level ridging gets flattened out like a pancake into more of a “zonal flow” (west to east with no big ridges or valleys), which will allow a cold front to move into the area from the north, further increasing rain chances and dropping temps just a bit.

The upper level pattern by next Tuesday becomes more “zonal” allowing a surface front to move into the region and increasing rain chances.

Here are the details on the next several days:

Stay cool, stay hydrated, and use the sunscreen!

Erik Proseus
MWN Meteorologist

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