Saturday, August 17: Fall feel for back-to-school

Summer heat and storms have been a double whammy the past several days. Another round of heat and thunder hit Southwest Missouri and Northwest Arkansas today. Waves of thunderstorms came with strong winds and hail in the Bentonville, AR, area southeast through Little Rock. We didn’t see the rain in Springfield, but we endured another 90° day. It looks like that will be the last for a while as the pattern shifts back into an early fall mode.

Before we fully dry out, we’ve got one more shot at showers overnight into Monday morning. Kids heading off to their first day of school may also need an umbrella with showers skirting through Southwest Missouri and Northwest Arkansas. There could even be some thunder. The rain doesn’t look overly heavy though with most areas that see rain picking up under a quarter of an inch.

The rain will end with sunshine taking over by noon. The rest of the day looks bright and mild with highs in the low to mid 80s.

Drier air will continue to flow in on east to northeast winds for the next several days. This will further cool and dry out the air with lows falling back into the upper 50s and low 60s throughout the week. Afternoon highs will be in the low to mid-80s through Thursday.

A shift in the pattern will bring some heat back to the area as we end the week with highs back in the upper 80s Friday. The summer ridge will reassert itself over the weekend, setting up camp over the region. This will make for a hot and quiet weekend forecast with highs back in the 90s.

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