How long will this heat hold?
Monday, July 31, 2006, 1:15 PM
by Bob Meyer
Heat continues its stranglehold on the middle of the country as temperatures into the 90s and 100s hit as far north as Minnesota and Wisconsin. So just how long is this going to continue? Brownfield meteorologist, Greg Soulje says it will be another 18 to 24 hours for the Great Lakes and upper Mississippi Valley, “And probably another two or three days by the time you hit the I-70 corridor.” There will be a transition to more seasonal temperatures over the period. “It’ll take two or three days to accomplish that, coming in clustered activity,” says Soulje, starting with Wisconsin, Minnesota and into Iowa and eastern Nebraska on Tuesday and Tuesday night. Relief should move into western Nebraska on Wednesday, “From about North Platte, westward into the high plains area.” He says the system will then shift south to the I-80 corridor, “And down to I-70 including much of central Illinois and central Indiana by late Wednesday, early Thursday.”
The system should deliver good rainfall for much of the area, Soulje says, “Three-quarter to an inch, inch-and-a-half,” however, it will come with some severe thunderstorms. We could see a situation similar to what Illinois, Indiana and Ohio saw last week, “Where we had storm clusters diverging either side of that frontal boundary, slow to move, providing some heavy downpours.”