Heat and humidity are here and it’s going to be a week that feels very “August”! Finally. Temperatures will be above normal and we expect several days of extreme heat warnings and alerts across Ohio. With the heat and humidity, we also expect some instability. Because of this, we’ll have to keep adding thunderstorms into the forecast for most of this week. Today, we’re not expecting much at all. Tonight into tomorrow, we could see a few thunderstorms across northwest Ohio. The better round of moisture comes tomorrow night into early Wednesday with 70% coverage. Wednesday into early Thursday is likely to bring us very little. Then we’ll have scattered thunderstorms and showers again for the rest of Thursday into early Saturday morning as a frontal boundary approaches and then pushes through the state of Ohio. The best way to look at the precipitation threat this week is to put it all together. From tomorrow morning into Saturday morning, we’ll likely have 0.25 to 1 inch of precipitation, covering 90% of the state. Areas most likely to be affected by the drought are south central and southeast Ohio, where it is already very dry and the drought is at its worst. The map below shows the moisture potential for the period Tuesday morning through Saturday morning.
Behind the front it is a little cooler and definitely drier. Humidity is dropping again. Full sunshine is expected for the Labor Day holiday weekend. Temperatures will be cooler but not cold as we just don’t penetrate as deeply into the Canadian air mass as we feared last week. So near normal temperatures but pleasant afternoon. A great holiday weekend.
Next week, Tuesday and Wednesday will continue to be dry, with temperatures beginning to rise again. Our next rain will likely stay away until late Wednesday night into Thursday the 5th. However, the best rains may remain further north and west of us. We will need to keep a close eye on this system.
