textproduct: Kansas City/Pleasant Hill

KEY MESSAGES

- Temperatures will continue to gradually climb over the next several days, with highs in the middle 90s forecast this weekend and upper 90s on Monday. - Showers and thunderstorms return on Thursday afternoon, with a 30-50% chance of precipitation for areas south of Highway 36. These storms could pose a threat for locally heavy rainfall and gusty winds.

- Heat index values will reach the upper 90s to lower 100s Friday through this weekend, peaking around 100 to 105 degrees on Monday.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 200 PM CDT Wed Jul 15 2026

Scattered showers and thunderstorms have formed across portions of Linn County Kansas and Bates County Missouri, within an environment characterized by very weak deep layer shear. This precipitation has formed near a plume of deeper surface moisture, which is slowly advecting north and west from south central Missouri and northern Arkansas.

For tonight, expect the aforementioned scattered showers and thunderstorms to persist through sunset. This activity is not expected to cause any issues, outside of occasional lightning strikes and brief heavy downpours. Thus far, any thunderstorms have remained short lived, and this should continue into this evening. After sunset, a loss of diurnal heating and instability should allow for any lingering precipitation to quickly wane.

Additional showers and thunderstorms are then expected tomorrow, as the aforementioned moist airmass overspreads much of the area. This leads to PWATs increasing to near and just above 2", which sits ~90th percentile climo for mid-July. Little change in upper level flow leads to very weak deep layer shear in place again tomorrow, and storms should have limited organization along with slow movement. These high PWATs and slow storm motions will pose a threat for locally heavy rainfall, and localized flash flooding cannot be completely ruled out. Some threat for gusty winds (wet microbursts) may exist as well, though confidence in this is low.

Upper ridging then reestablishes further west by late week, with the potential for more active northwest flow to establish into early next week. This will also bring a return of increasing low level warm advection, with guidance suggesting low level jet development nearly each night by this weekend and beyond. This will bring increasing temperatures across the area by Saturday, with highs in the middle to upper 90s expected through Monday. Monday continues to be the warmest day, where highs in the upper 90s will overlap with dewpoints in the upper 60s/low 70s to push heat index values to as high as 100 to 105F. The greatest heat concerns Monday are expected for areas near and south of Interstate 70.

The less clear threat will be for any thunderstorms across the area this weekend and into early next week. The development of the nocturnal low level jet does suggest some threat for overnight thunderstorms, though confidence in this remains low. Inherited slight-chance POPs in the overnight hours Monday and beyond look reasonable at this timeframe, and see no reason to make any adjustments. Will especially have to monitor this threat into early next week as troughing begins to establish across the eastern CONUS, bringing a return of active northwest flow aloft.

AVIATION /18Z TAFS THROUGH 18Z THURSDAY/

Issued at 1235 PM CDT Wed Jul 15 2026

Scattered to broken CU persist this afternoon, with cloud bases remaining low-end VFR. Widely scattered showers are possible as well this afternoon, though should remain south of HWY 50. Additional showers and thunderstorms are possible tomorrow afternoon, though any impacts to terminals looks to be after 18Z tomorrow.

Winds shift from east to south to southwest tonight, at 5kts or less. Southwest winds then prevail tomorrow afternoon, at 5 to 10kts.

EAX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

MO...None. KS...None.