I hope this e-mail finds you ok, because the heat we’re all experiencing from the Southwest out onto the Plains is brutal with 110F readings widespread at times. This is some real-deal heat that would make any person uncomfortable, even if you have been trying to convince people you are not!
Luckily, the pattern that has brought the record breaking heat is in the process of breaking down for a bit. But, some bad news, you’ll have a few more days of very hot to get through first.
The heat dome that has been present over the middle of the country for much of the last month will break down through the early parts of this week with, wait for it, sub 100F high temperatures becoming more and more common in the southwest 1/4 of the Nation.
By Saturday the upper air pattern (see above image) will feature a high pressure center regathering strength over the Great Basin region of the west with sporadic jet stream flow sneaking down its east axis onto the Plains. This may help drop highs as much as 20-30F below where they are now! Do high temps in the lower 90s or upper 80s sound great? I hope so!
With this cooldown and sporadic flow on the east edge of the new gathering heat dome in the west comes a chance of some severe weather by next weekend on the Plains. Don’t focus too hard on the graphic above for exact locations, we’re in the midst of a pattern change so the finest details aren’t important right now! But, expect some severe weather risks to really start working in by next weekend on the Plains.
We’re in the Desert!
As part of the ongoing pattern, the heat dome placement over the Plains is resulting in a big moisture surge over the deserts of Arizona, and that’s where you’ll find us right now as we document the monsoon season in the low deserts!
We’ve already gotten some good material just two days in to this trip. While I’m personally not a fan of chasing the monsoon season hard for two months (I need breaks from constant storm chasing please don’t judge me) — short trips during big surges are really fun. In the spirit of quality over quantity, we’ll probably have some more storm adventures to go on throughout the rest of Summer and into Fall. Look for all of our adventures to wind up in a YouTube video soon.
Hurricane Season?
We’ve already had three named storms (all tropical storms) so far this year. The average first Hurricane of the season is almost always sometime from mid-July to mid-August, so it is probably only a matter of time until we have bigger storms to watch. Right now, the basin is quiet with no waves to keep an eye on at the moment.
Expect this map to start changing soon.
YouTube Videos Coming VERY Soon
Transparency moment here: I was supposed to have a new video done and uploaded before I left for Arizona but, ahem, I messed that up and didn’t get it done. Expect THAT video to be up by next weekend. You should subscribe to our YouTube channel and enable notifications so you can be the first to know when our videos are posted.
