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Overnight and early Tuesday morning strong storms developed over southern and southeastern Iowa which moved into central and northwest Illinois. There is a second cluster of significant storms and moderate / hvy rains over central Indiana. Additional scattered showers can be found over eastern South Dakota into southeast Manitoba Canada and lighter scattered rain showers over northwest Iowa and central Nebraska..
MONDAY MAX TEMPS
80s over all of the Midwest into KY and eastern ND, SD, northeast NEB… Low 90s over MO, western ILL, TN, GA, AL, MS, LA, ARK, eastern TX, eastern OK, western NEB, western SD into eastern WY … 95-105 over western TX, into TX Panhandle, all of KS into eastern COL and over eastern T / western ND.
RAINFALL LAST 24 HRS — ending 0700 11 JULY
1-5 DAY = During the overnight hours a stronger than expected thunderstorm cluster known in the weather business as a “MCS ” developed over southern central Iowa that moved into southeastern Iowa during the predawn hours then into northwest Illinois. This image shows the thunderstorm cluster developing at 6:00 AM central time and the local rainfall ESTIMATED amounts showing up on some of the radar reports.
But many of these radar reports are “enhanced “and not accurate and there are often significant discrepancies between actual rainfall reports on the ground and these radar estimated reports. This image shows this quite clearly. Over the next few days there are going to be more impressive looking thunderstorm clusters moving through portions of eastern Nebraska … eastern South Dakota, Iowa, Illinois. The example we saw this morning is something to keep in mind. Some of the storms all the next 3 days may produce significant rains but a lot of the initial radar estimates are going to be way off. That being said the trade is going to react immediately to any sort of thunderstorm cluster which pops up on the radar during the overnight hours.
In addition, as we have said over the past several days … that until the pattern begins to shift around July 15 … the overall conditions over the Midwest and especially the ECB will continue to favor the development of thunderstorm clusters that will produce anywhere from light to heavy rains in small areas.
With respect to the heat over the Plains regions the models have not changed. Many areas today and Wednesday will see temperatures 95-105° from central Kansas into the Dakotas and mid 90s are possible over much of Missouri and Iowa today, tomorrow and Wednesday. A cold front will arrive on Thursday and break the heat over Nebraska and the Dakotas as well as Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin, but south of the front temperatures will still be quite hot over Missouri, central and southern Illinois as well as Kansas.
6-10 DAY = There remains considerable debate within the meteorological community regarding the heat coming into the central Plains and the WCB in the 6-10 day. Over the past three weeks, there have been several attempts by either the European model or the GFS model to shift the heat dome from the West Coast / Rockies into the central Plains and or the Midwest. Invariably these models change their minds usually 24 to 48 hours later and back off of this idea. As we have discussed in the past … one of the reasons has to do with the wet soil conditions over the ECB region. Of course with all this flip flopping with the weather models … there is a lot of skepticism with regard to the idea of the heat dome coming out of the Rockies and moving into the central Plains and the WCB even if it is for only a few days in the middle of July – after July 15.
This image however explains why we think this time it is different. In this particular instance … all of the model data is showing the Heat dome coming east … not just 1 or 2 models. This is called model consensus and it is very strong with the idea of the heat dome moving into the central Plains and the WCB between July 17/18 and July 21/22. This could be a five or six day window for extreme heat over the WCB.
Indeed over the past few weeks we have urged caution with regard to the idea of the heat dome coming east into any portion of the central Plains or the Midwest but we have also maintained that it is possible that at SOME point in middle or late July that the heat dome could finally come east – even if just for a few days. This appears to be what the model data is showing on this Tuesday morning.
11-15 DAY = The heat dome pattern breaks down and things will move back to a more typical late July weather pattern. The weather models continue to remain fairly dry over all areas and still rather hot although not as extreme.
Because of some significant changes in the pattern over the tropical Pacific we continue to believe that all this will probably be warmer than normal and drier than normal especially west of Mississippi River.
However the uncertainty factor here is a little high because the Monday week 3 and week 4 CFS models as well as the Monday night European weekly did show pretty good rains in the last week of July and the 1st week of August over the Plains and WCB. This is not enough to get us to change our August forecast but we are concerned that these 2 models have turned wetter.
For those interested in grains, Sean Lusk, Director, Walsh Commercial Hedging Services hosts a FREE Grain Outlook webinar each Thursday at 3PM CST. He will hold his next webinar on Thursday, July 13th. REGISTER NOW.