Will we keep the worst of the heat away for now?

Welcome to summer! I still get nervous this time of year because after enduring the brutal heat of 2011 and 2012, there's that underlying concern that it could happen (or will happen) again. I think most of us would prefer to forget those couple of summer that nearly killed all of our vegetation. Crops did poorly and the drought was even worse than what's ongoing. 

This was the drought map from early July 2012:

100% of the state was in drought, with 80% in severe to exceptional status. 

What to watch for:

I know it's overused, but the heat dome is simply high pressure that blocks or squashes most rain that comes anywhere close to it. Air sinks and warms underneath of the high itself, so if we can identify where it will position itself, we can usually make a good assumption that it will trend toward dry and much hotter conditions. Will that happen this year?

In the shorter term, the answer is no. I look for the high to be in the Southwest to finish off June, but it could meander back toward Kansas in early July. The map below has the high near Oklahoma and northern Texas, but not right over Kansas. We will still get hot in this kind of setup, but it doesn't stay in that spot for weeks on end. I would say through at least the 4th of July, any encounters of 100 heat will likely be somewhat short lived. 

If we end up on the eastern edge of the "heat dome", there's at least some potential of rain coming in from Colorado and a little "cooler" weather. The northeast side of a heat ridge usually offers up some threats of storms, which of course helps to knock the intense heat down. Kansas might be in that sweet spot over the next few weeks, so we anticipate at least some occasional rounds of storms that form on the eastern edge of the high.

If we look out to mid/late July, things may get quite hot with rainfall in very short supply. I don't think we are out of the woods by any means because this heat ridge may spend a few weeks right over Kansas.

What does the overall rain projections look like for the next 30-40 days? Probably enough rain to just get by, but I don't think the next month or so looks overly wet - not likely wet enough to keep erasing drought conditions. Western Kansas average rainfall in July is 3", while for central and south central, it is about 4". Given the map below, we should expect maybe 2-3" over the entire month. 

A new satellite is about to take flight:

The kind of weather satellite that we use so frequently travel about 22,000 miles above the Earth's surface. At that altitude, they are sync with the orbit of the Earth, so they are able to monitor the same spots of the globe day and night. There are other satellites that travel closer to the Earth's surface, but they don't see the same areas 24/7. There are sensors onboard that will give us better imaging of real-time lightning flashes in thunderstorms. 

What's most unique about the satellite that is set to go into orbit on Tuesday, June 25 is that it will have equipment to study the sun's corona. This is what we can see with our own eyes during a total solar eclipse, but this new satellite may be better able to identify when there could be strong geomagnetic storms headed this way. It wasn't that long ago we just had a strong one that interfered with GPS technology. The image below is what the coronagraph looks like. 

It will block out the sun while it focuses on the flares coming from it. 

Thanks for reading!