June 24-30, 2005
Midwest Weekly Highlights - June 24-30, 2005
H3 - Hazy,
Hot, and Humid
A large upper level ridge over the central United States brought hot,
humid weather to much of the Midwest the last week of June.
The stagnant weather pattern brought seven consecutive days of 90oF
weather to much of the region. The northern Midwest had some breaks
from the heat early in the week and again late in the week as cold
fronts ushered cooler and drier air into Minnesota, Wisconsin, and
Michigan. Temperatures this week ranged from 1oF
to 3oF
below normal over northwestern Minnesota to 8oF
above normal from north central Illinois northeastward into the wetern
half of Michigan (Figure 1). Rainfall was much
above normal this across
southern Minnesota and most of Iowa (Figure 2). Over the remainder of the
region, rainfall was limited to that produced by
widely scattered thunderstorms that popped up in the warm humid
air.
Drought
Intensifies over Central Midwest
With rain limited mostly to widely scattered showes and thunderstorms,
the drought intensified over Illinois
and southeastern Missouri this
week. The June 28 issue of the U.S. Drought Monitor (Figure 3)
shows the Severe Drought category had expanded to
include much of northern Illinois and southeastern Missouri, while
Moderate
Drought encompassed much of Illinois, southeast Missouri, and parts of
Wisconsin, Michigan, and Indiana. There were widely
scattered
thunderstorms across Illinois,
Indiana, and Ohio almost
daily during the week, but they were few and far between.
With
the upper
level ridge parked overhead and very light winds aloft, the storms
tended to form and decay over the same spot, or move only a short
distance. Those fortunate to be
located under these storms frequently received heavy rain on the order
of an inch or more, while a mile away no rain would fall. The storms
were accompanied by brief periods of lightning, and sometimes produced
small hail and ocassionally damaging
winds. In Roselle, IL near Chicago, a 15-year-old boy was
killed
and a man was injured when lightning struck behind their home on June
26.
90 degree weather was widespread across the region during the
week. The high reached 91oF
in Chicago on June 25, the
highest temperature in three years. A fire at a power
substation
during the evening knocked power out to 51,000 Commonwealth
Edison customers from the Loop to the southwest side, leaving many
sweltering in the heat and humidity. The heat was unrelenting
across Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, and western Ohio, while northwest
of a frontal boundary the upper Midwest was enjoying comfortable but
stormy weather. On June 29 a high temperature of 100 was
recorded
in Vichy, MO (Figure 4).
The dry weather continued to take its toll on corn and soybeans in the
heart of the drought area. In Illinois, the condition of the
corn crop declined from 15 percent poor to very poor for the week
ending June 19 to 28 percent poor to very poor for the week ending June
26.
Severe
Weather Continues to
Pound
Upper Midwest
Severe weather occurred somewhere in the Midwest on every day during
the week, but the largest concentration of severe weather was in
Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin where a cold front remained stalled out
most of the week (Figure 5). Although there
were a few tornadoes reported, most
of the damage was due to straight line winds (Figure 6). A line of
storms brought beneficial rain to portions of Ohio on June 30 (Figure 7). A number of
locations in the southwestern quarter of Ohio received more than two
inches of rain bringing rainfall to the week to normal levels (Figure 8). (Note: This is not reflected
in the weekly map (Figure 2) as the rain received on June
30 was reported on the morning of July 1). The storms reached
severe levels from southwestern Missouri across southern Illinois,
Indiana, and across southern Michigan, south through most of Ohio, and
northern Kentucky (Figure 9). Most of the severe
weather was damaging straight-line winds, although one tornado touched
down in Newton
County, MO.