Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

I loved that book growing up, it was a childhood favorite. I always thought it would be so cool if it would rain food. If we lived in the town of Chewandswallow at this point in time, I fear we would have a major issue at hand. If you haven't noticed. It has been raining.. a lot. As a matter of fact, I know it isn't the end of the month just yet but July looks to end well above average as far as precipitation goes. Currently, we have received 5.54" of precipitation to date for July. That is 2.34" above normal. With only 4 more days left in the month and chances for showers and thunderstorms in the forecast through the weekend, I have a feeling this number could go even higher.

Here is the situation at hand. We have the jet stream continuing to stay well to the North, close to the Canadian border with the United States. That has helped to trap the heat to the South. We also continue to have plenty of moisture moving in from the Gulf. I know Bonnie died out rather quickly but the Low pressure system associated with it shot up a lot of that moisture. Remember, moisture is one of the key ingredients for strong/severe weather. That moisture has entered a fairly warm atmosphere here in the Midwest. Temperatures have been rather warm, slightly above average for this time of the year here in the Mid MO area. That warm, daytime heating that we have the pleasure of experiencing helps to enhance the instability of the atmosphere. Pumping more moisture into the atmosphere is not going to help. It is just going to aid in the creation of convection, also known as thunderstorm development.

It is very difficult to predict exactly where the instability thunderstorms will occur so you really just have to keep an eye to the sky. Because if you take a look at the rainfall website http://www.cocorahs.org/ you will notice not all areas experience rainfall, or the same rainfall totals. Some areas, do not see any rain, and others see plenty. Just make sure that you have an umbrella handy the next couple of days, because you will probably end up needing one.