KSHB: Weather: Action Weather Blog: Afternoon Update

It has been another nice day across the area... as temperatures have slowly started to warm. Today, we were in the upper 80s across the area... and we can expect lower 90s Monday... with mid 90s here by Tuesday.

The REAL heat is to our west... with the upper level ridge firmly in place there:

Helena, Montana has been at 100 degrees two days in a row! I only pick Helena... because I used to live there. :) It is such a beautiful city!! And off the weather topic for just a second... in elementary school, we learned it was pronounced "hel-AY-nuh"... when in fact it is REALLY pronounced "HEL-in-uh". There are many places with the same story... in school we learned it was Pierre, SD... (French pronunciation)... when actually it is pronounced "Pier". I learned that one living here in KC!

OK... remember when that upper level ridge was over us... during the heat wave? One of our bloggers asked why it wasn't raining... because even though there was an upper level ridge... it was VERY humid.

Well, it wasn't raining here, because we had sinking air pretty much in every level of the atmosphere... and there was a rather strong cap in place. But check out what's happening underneath the ridge out West:

Yes, scattered showers and thunderstorms! How is this possible? Well, for one... they do have the moisture. Monsoonal moisture is coming in around the backside of the high. Also... the mountains provide a lifting mechanism (we call that orographic lifting).

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Good Afternoon, Jamie

Helena, Montana huh? wow..what a beautiful area of the country to have lived in! Montana is glorious..I have had the pleasure of seeing it a few times. What an beautiful day today!! set decoration cumulus..80's and deep blue skies. The monsoon is really engaged now to our west and we'll have to keep an eye on pieces of it breaking off and rotating around summer high pressure, combining with frontal boundries and giving us " gift " rains. for late July I can say one thing..it is impressively green here in So JoCo. Those rains were so important here locally. Let's see if we can get a bit of that extra wet stuff midweek. Oh...and good job keeping it interesting in the doldrums Jamie.. =)

Robert

ROBERT:
Montana is probably my favorite place in the world. I lived there for a year, and we try to go back every so often... to visit old friends and to hike/sight-see. One really cool thing about Helena... is that the town is set in a valley... and if you're standing in town, and you look to the NORTH... you will see the Sleeping Giant.

Here is a shot of the Giant, and a great website for more pictures from all over Montana:

http://www.montanapictures.net/helena-montana-sleeping-giant.htm

CAN YOU SEE THE GIANT? :)

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Hi - I know Gary pokes fun at my not appreciating the little rain we got, but from the NWS drought statement of 7-21, I believe I have reason to affirm the drought - Jackson Co and many other areas around KC are STILL in moderate drought. While areas just to our south saw 2-8 inches of rain, and areas north of US 36 saw a couple of inches the other day, Blue Springs and many other places received meagre (and I mean meagre) amounts. Yes we had a couple of inches a couple of weeks ago, but with 10 inches or more in the hole, that doesn't really do much long-term. As the NWS says, and I agree, it will take a prolonged, substantial rainfall event over Ja Co to yank us ought of our current drought situation. Just my 10 cents. BTW, there was a "net gain" of 3 counties to the moderate drought area.

Dog
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Storm Dog,

I agree. It is a struggle and we are in moderate drought, but it isn't severe. So, my point has been all along that we are in a very bad pattern and it is just extremely difficult for it to produce regular wide spread rainfall. This continues to this day. The pattern is about to shift, but August is very rarely a wet month. So, if this drought is going to be wiped out then it may come in August, but most likely we have to wait for September. A lot of pressure will be on the fall months.

Gary