Storm Chances, Heat, Humidity and a haboob...another good day to be talking about the weather on the blog...let's start with the later...we're talking haboobs...they're actually pretty common in the SW part of the country and the one that hit Phoenix, according to the long time residents there who'll see several in a year sometimes was quite the biggie. The Arizona Central newspaper, which serves the Phoenix area has some great pictures taken by them as well as their readers

An haboob occurs when thunderstorms push rain cooled air to the ground. In a sense their sort of like our microbursts, except on a much bigger scale. If you remember a couple of weeks ago @ night we had collasping thunderstorms produce high winds that created heat bursts in the region...this is somewhat similar.

The winds from the storms slammed into the desert terrain (sand) and created a massive sand storm. It was roughly 1-2 miles high and spread out for some 50 miles or so. These storms will typically occur this time of the year as the monsoon season kicks in. The moisture streams in from Mexico (perhaps aided by some moisture from what was Arlene) and with the intense heat and the terrain (flat and mountains) the air rises and creates storms. The storms sometimes come together and when they die they will gust themselves out. It's the winds that create the sandstorms and when their intense (last night 50-70 MPH) then can create larger haboobs. Why "haboobs? It's an Arabic word meaning strong wind or phenomena. Now you would think that with all this t/storm generated wind that it would rain as well...usually that's not the case as either the storms rain themselves out and/or the rain evaporates before it reaches the ground (which will tend to increase the surface winds as well). The folks from Accuweather have some neat videos concerning the events of last night...and here is another neat video...

Meanwhile back home after fading rains moved through E KS providing some much needed rainfall for them, there really were only a few sprinkles around the metro...we now wait and see what will transpire across the western plains tonight. there are disturbances caught in the flow out there that are moving towards the east. You can clearly see the different blobs of cloudcover out there...now the issue is what path will the future complexes take and will they get into SE NE before turning towards the metro...or will then get into NC KS then turn towards the SE and miss us tomorrow to the west. We're betting on something tomorrow for the 1st part of the day...

Beyond those chances for tomorrow...then we focus on our typical summer heat and humidity that will linger through the the next work week with diminished precip chances. While the forecast can't really pinpoint any other strong chances for rainfall...there may be some scattered PM chances flaring up during the TUE or WED time period next week. The heat won't be extreme, but a lingering 92-96+ regime looks to be shaping up. There may be some sort of VERY weak front the gets close to us there as well...but should have a tough time pressing through here...let alone N MO...

Lastly the NOAA folks are talking about the persistent flooding that isn't going anywhere anytime soon...

That'll do it on a busy WED PM...

Joe