Rainfall update - is this a LONG hot spell coming up?

Recent rain episodes have been somewhat isolated and very hard to pin down more than 24 hours in advance. Monday afternoon was a classic example of what "isolated" looks like on radar. The example shown below is from 4 pm Monday when a couple areas were getting hit with 2-3" rainfall per hour.

Monday afternoon storms left behind some nice amounts in a few spots.

north side of Wichita

Near Tampa - Marion county

There appear to be two more chances coming to Kansas this week. The setup Wednesday night should favor north central and northeast Kansas. I don't think these storms are going to get very far south into Kansas (mainly because the mid-levels of the atmosphere are VERY warm - which usually chokes off the storms) Whatever does develop will move to the southeast during the night (and likely weaken as they move along)

Thursday will be an interesting day. There is a chance this could be the hottest day of the week for parts of the state. HOWEVER... if clouds are factor (which they very well could be), temperatures across central and eastern Kansas may be held back. We may also have some rain cooled air surging across the area from leftover Wednesday night storms. Highest storm chances going into Thursday look like they will be along and east of I-135. 

What makes it difficult to get storms this time of year is that mid-level temperatures (around 9-10,000 feet) are quite warm, and that makes it much more challenging to get thunderstorms. That's what we are up against later this week.

Looking down the road - more hot and more dry.

That may not surprise you, after all, that is what we expect in this month. Sometimes we get a nice surprise and temperatures aren't as hot. But this year, it looks like our weather patterns are going to be stubborn to move much, so I think we should expect it to be hot and dry for several days to come.