(Week of 5-28-23) Summer Heat Becomes Expansive as Drought Conditions develop in Midwest.
Summer Heat Becomes Expansive With A Rapid Onset Of Drought Conditions Over The Midwest Cornbelt. This episode speaks about the intense solar insolation in the upper latitudes this time of year. This helps to explain the heat that is coming from the north. This warmest air will blow into the Midwest on Northeast winds by Friday for some places reaching St.Louis by Saturday. The sun will be even more efficient heating this air than the southeast wind air it will be replacing. This is due to the lower dew points. We discuss accumulating hail in the plains to the point that the National Weather Service is warning motorists to drive like they would in the snow. We discuss how the immediate Chicago area might miss the heat entirely due to the Eastern component to the wind which will allow cooler air from the Lake to mix in. This doesn't include all of Chicago. The Brookfield Zoo for example will probably get very warm. We discuss how peak intensity of the heat will be taking place over the parts of the Midwest corn belt that are in the beginning of a drought. We also discuss how no widespread dangerous heat is expected. However, this heat is expansive and will be covering a large part of Canada as well. Therefore, Environmental Canada is likely to issue a heat advisory at some point. We also have a number of larger metropolitan areas that are under air quality alert due to high ozone, Chicago and St.Louis are a couple examples. We discuss how the 86° - 95° F (30°-35°C) heat will come in on East winds but despite this, the cities close to the cold water lakes will still get very warm. (The exception will be the immediate Lakeshore cities such as Chicago). Further inland, temperatures are likely to surpass 95°F (35°C) in at least isolated spots. At the time of this episode it appeared that the most likely spot for this would be the southeastern portions of Iowa that border Illinois on Saturday. 95° heat could be expansive on Saturday and include other locations within the Midwest Corn Belt within the drought stricken areas (Eastern portions).
