And the record heat continues

The record warmth continued in the north central states and south central Canada on Tuesday. Winnipeg reached 36.9C (98F), breaking its daily record by more than 3.5C and setting the record for warmest temperature so early in the season and second warmest temperature for the month of May. International Falls reached 90F for the third straight day and set another daily record. This was obviously the earliest three day streak of 90F there, June 4-6 2021 being the prior earliest such streak. Meanwhile, record heat also developed in Texas, with record highs tied or broken in Houston, Austin, and San Antonio.

Record warmth will begin to come to an end in the north central states today, but will peak in Texas and the Southern Plains.

The near record warmth will shift east and expand over the next couple of days, with record warm minimums widespread across the south and east by Friday.

As far as precipitation is concerned, scattered showers and thunderstorms will be possible over much of the East today, while a storm system continues to get better organized over the west with high elevation snow. The upper level storm system will move far enough east today to encounter increasing Gulf moisture and instability resulting in a slight (level 2 of 5) risk of severe storms in the Northern Plains.

The threat of severe weather will increase on Thursday as the system moves east, with an enhanced (level 3 of 5) risk of severe storms for western parts of the Great Lakes region. Conditions appear favorable for several intense supercell storms capable of very large hail, damaging winds and tornadoes in this region.

This looks to be the start of an active period of severe weather that will last into early next week. On Friday, the cold front associated with this storm system will begin to stall out, and another intense piece of upper level energy will interact with the front resulting in the potential for another higher end severe weather day over the Mid-South and Ohio Valley. The front will push a bit farther south along with the associated severe weather risk for Saturday. On Sunday a new storm system will begin to organize in the Southwest, and that weather system will bring risks of severe storms to the central part of the country into early next week.