A Hot Start to September....Cooler Labor Day

After a pleasant start to the week, we're back to some intense heat for the second half of this week.  Here is a look at some of our area's temperatures as of 4PM today:

And so the dog days of summer continue...with more heat on the way for the rest of the week. Below are shots of the surface temperature forecasts for 3PM according to the NAM forecast model...both showing upper 90's for our region, with maybe even a pocket or two of 100's in SEMO:

Thursday:

 Friday:

There is a little bit of good news, however, with these temperature forecasts.  With very little rain over the past few weeks, so much moisture has been sapped from the ground that the humidity levels will not be all that oppressive. 

As we look to the weekend, some drastic changes are on the way for area thermometers.  A pretty strong cold front looks like it will make it through the region sometime on Sunday, and that will spell big relief from this current heat.  Here's a look at the HPC map, showing the front already much of the way through the region by 7AM Sunday:

The unfortunate aspect of this frontal passage is that unless something changes, there isn't going to be much moisture to work with, and while we may have a scattered shower or two Saturday night or Sunday, we're not going to see much rain with this system....really our only chance for rain in the near future.  While a rain-free forecast is good for those Labor Day plans, we'll end up nearly 1.5" below average for the month of August. 

After the front moves through, we're in store for a refreshing change in temperatures, as numbers should end up in the upper 70's to around 80 on Monday.  And earlier today I took a glance over the 16 day GFS forecast for temperatures....Saturday could be our last 90 degree day for quite some time.

Moving from home to the tropics...still watching Katia today, as she is close to becoming a hurricane.  The 5-day forecast still continues to show this storm becoming a major hurricane over this weekend:

However, the news continues to be good for now, as the GFS ensemble models continue to show this storm curving northward before it has the chance to impact the eastern U.S.  Still way too early to make predictions with any certainty, but this storm doesn't appear that it will pose the same threat as Irene.

There is another area of disturbed tropical weather worth watching....this one is a disorganized batch of clouds and thunderstorms out in the Gulf of Mexico.  This may end up being a nice rain maker for the Gulf Coast, but the NHC is only giving it a 30% chance of becoming a named storm over the next 48 hours.