As expected it's getting hotter by the hour out there right now...as temperatures are well into the 90s with some areas over on the KS side starting to flirt with 100 near the Topeka area....factoring in dewpoints of 70-75 and you get heat indices near 105....yuck and a great day to be inside with the A/C going that's for sure...also a good day to remember your heat safety rules...so far I believe 5 people have died in the KC area from heat related issues this year...something to think about...

The 1PM obs show a chaotic wind field in the region...with not a lot of wind out there. so while we''re 92 @ KCI and 94 Downtown, I wonder how much more we can go up this afternoon. The lighter winds were a factor in my temperature forecasting today. A stronger S/SW wind would allow highs to creep towards 100...regardless it's rough out there!

What you see below is a pie chart...thanks to our uber intern Kristy, I'll be showing this at various times for awhile...basically it will show a look at temperatures going back to the 1880s. In this case it's every day's high temps going back to 1888 for a period of 7/8-7/14...

The colors represent the number of time temperatures fell into a certain range. For example the slim color blue at the top represent the number of times we had highs in the 60s. The Purple color represents the number (%) of times highs were in the 70s (9%). The Orange represents the 80s (47%) the Red shows the 90s (38%) and the brown shows the 100s (6%). So basically during this time period, judging from the past 85% of the time we were in the 80s/90s. What's interesting is that there is a better chance of us having highs in the 70s as opposed to the 100s (9% vs 6%). It just shows you how tough it is to get there...my suspicion is that it does get easier to get to 100 as the next few weeks role along...climatalogically it makes sense. If you remember I showed a chart like this a couple of weeks ago showing the chance of hitting 100 as about 4%...so the numbers are increasing as we get deeper into the summer around here.

Speaking of which...look at this map below...showing the high temperatures YESTERDAY (SAT) in Oklahoma...crazy hot down there. virtually every city had highs above 105...and I believe hearing that was the first time OK saw statewide highs all above 100 in the last 15 years or so...very impressive. Today Oklahoma City is again above 100...for the 12th day in a row and the 21st time this year. I think the record is 50 for a year set back during that crazy hot summer of 1980.

Looking forward...there will be storm chances developing TUE night into WED...the GFS keeps the chance into THU as well...at this point I'll keep my chance going for WED and keep the other days dry. Whatever minor break we get in the heat will not last but a couple of days as it scorches again towards next weekend with essentially this same airmass circulating right back at us. The GFS does show the ridge retorgrading a bit towards in about 12 days (gulp) allowing for some relief...

Stay cool and drink that water...

Joe