Smoke arrives from the west & storms this weekend

You may notice some extra red in our sunrise and sunsets over the next few days/evenings as huge plumes of smoke come rolling in from western wildfires. A couple of fires in particular that are quite large include the Bootleg in Oregon that is 11,000 acres and only 1% contained. And the Beckwourth fire is in northeast California that has grown to 3800 acres.

The smoke plumes are quite visible on satellite images. The satellite pictures we are using here come from about 24,000 miles above the surface. Below, you'll see an image showing the smoke plume overlaid with the upper level winds (black arrows) that continue to carry it over the Rockies and down into Kansas. Most of the smoke will remain at high altitudes, but with some rain and thunder in the weekend forecast, it wouldn't be impossible for some of it to get carried down to the ground. 

Weekend storms: Best chance for severe weather Friday night will be in northern Kansas - wind gusts of 60-70 mph. The storms will track southeast. 

Saturday daybreak:

Whatever is on radar at the start of the day should not be severe. It will mainly be showers with an occasional rumble of thunder. 

Severe chance setting up for southern Kansas Saturday evening:

Hail and wind threats will be elevated for those areas along and southeast of the Turnpike. It won't be around long, and I would expect by 7 or 8 pm, most will be down into Oklahoma, leaving us with some quiet weather into the night.

In the heaviest rainfall, amounts will be up around 1-2 inches, but that's probably not going to be on a widespread basis. We still have some very high humidity and it shouldn't be too hard for these storms to ring out some heavy downpours. 

2nd full week of July:

Still no sign of major heat. The upper level high pressure (which is where most of us don't really want to end up) continues to be in a weakened state and likely out in California for several days. This keeps Kansas in a position to have near or below average temperatures for the majority of the week. I'm also expecting us to have some more rain opportunities in the middle part of the week. Hopefully by then, everyone will be finished with the wheat harvest.