textproduct: Kansas City/Pleasant Hill

KEY MESSAGES

- Hot and Humid weather continues through Saturday with heat indicies in the 100-105+ range, especially across central Missouri. Temperatures cool down slightly by Sunday.

- Residual shower/storm activity through the morning/early afternoon, with potential impacts on afternoon/evening activity. Confidence remains low in exact evolution of afternoon activity.

- Greater confidence in showers/storms during the late evening along the I-70 corridor, with lightning, strong winds, and heavy rainfall being the primary hazards.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 359 AM CDT Sat Jul 4 2026

Thunderstorms from the previous few hours continues to decay as it traverses out of our forecast area, with new storms over southeastern Nebraska and northern Kansas trailing behind. This complex of storms is expected to continue pushing southeastward through the remaining overnight hours into the morning as it follows along mean atmospheric flow, with additional activity spurred on by broad scale synoptic forcing through an upper- level trough and associated vort maxima presently located over southeast Nebraska. As it stands, most of this activity is elevated, with stable low layers due to cold pooling and a bulk of CAPE residing in the mixed layer. Thus, anticipated severe impacts with these storms remains low confidence, with the greatest hazards being heavy rainfall and strong winds gusts as storms collapse.

Similar to yesterday, determining forecast impacts during the day will depend a lot on real-time environmental analysis. CAMs continue to perform poorly when it comes to resolving current activity, and as such confidence remains low in any solutions they provide to guide the forecast process. Utilizing what we know about the current synoptic/mesoscale environment, it is plausible that activity continues to our northwest through the morning and early afternoon. At present, weak dCVA associated with the shortwave will prompt it to slowly lift towards the east/northeast through the next few hours. As the shortwave lingers, continued convective activity will spark along weak synoptic lifting from this area of dCVA. Current radar reflectivity shows activity developing generally from southeast Nebraska into northern Kansas, which supports this idea. This convection, as it continues to evolve through the night, could lead to continued impacts across the forecast area through the morning by way of ongoing convection or new activity firing off along remnant outflow boundaries. Whatever ends up being the case, the presence of these showers/storms could impact the timing of showers/storms later in the afternoon/evening. If activity lingers, it could keep our chances for precipitation lower during the afternoon as the atmosphere won't have too much opportunity to heat up and eventually destabilize. However, if this activity clears out relatively quick and the atmosphere is allowed to destabilize earlier, chances are greater in seeing pulse thunderstorms across the area through the afternoon, which could create a greater coverage of activity through subsequent outflow boundaries as they build up and quickly collapse. Another caveat to consider will be the continued effects of the shortwave as it lifts away from our area. Looking at the broader synoptic scale, this shortwave appears to drape a boundary down across our forecast area during the evening/overnight hours. This will be a greater forcing mechanism for showers/storms, and thus confidence is higher in the potential for precipitation along this boundary. However, there is still some disagreement between guidance on when this boundary will cross over our forecast area, either placing it as early as sunset or a few hours later in the night. At the synoptic scale, there is a better chance for models to resolve and agree on this relative to mesoscale features, so the forecast ahead will have to monitor this trend to see if that occurs. With this activity, severe potential remains lower, with lower effective shear keeping storms less organized despite ample instability and weak overall forcing. With strong storms, you could expect to see gusty winds.

Activity will clear out going into Sunday, and "cooler" temperatures will follow with the passage of the boundary. However, going into next week, temperatures look to rise once again with an amplified ridge building over our area through the early week. However, unlike this previous week, lower dewpoints will keep much of our forecast area below triple digit heat indices. Deterministic guidance keeps our area drier through this early week timeframe, before PoPs increase going into the later half of next week. However, at this timeframe, greater deviation in deterministic solutions of the synoptic scale remains evident, and as such confidence remains lower on whether this will actually pan out.

AVIATION /12Z TAFS THROUGH 12Z SUNDAY/

Issued at 646 AM CDT Sat Jul 4 2026

A complicated forecast for today... Presently seeing continued weather looking to impact terminals during the morning hours. Guidance is still not resolving activity well, so confidence remains lower on continued rain chances through the early morning/afternoon. Have gone with PROB30s through the period to communicate remaining uncertainty with exact timing of showers/storms, but confidence still remains in shower/storm potential during the day. Winds are expected to remain light/variable through the period, with general VFR outside of weather impacts.

EAX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

MO...Extreme Heat Warning until 8 PM CDT this evening for MOZ028>033-037>040-043>046-053-054. Heat Advisory until 8 PM CDT this evening for MOZ001>008- 011>017-020>025. KS...Extreme Heat Warning until 8 PM CDT this evening for KSZ025- 057-060-103>105. Heat Advisory until 8 PM CDT this evening for KSZ102.