United States

By Alex Sosnowski, Expert Senior Meteorologist

August 02, 2012; 8:27 PM

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A conveyor belt of showers and thunderstorms will bring some rain to needy areas of the central Plains and Midwest during the first week of August.

While far from an abrupt end to the drought conditions in the area, the rainfall will start to moisten the ground in parts of the region.

Parts of the Colorado plains, Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, Arkansas and other states will be on the receiving end of the showers and thunderstorms.

Weak disturbances rotating around a zone of high pressure will cause clusters of showers and thunderstorms to form and drench some communities in their path.

The same flow of air around massive high pressure managed to keep the worst of the drought out of the Upper Midwest and Northeast earlier in the summer.

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When sufficient moisture is present in the ground, not only do plants and crops thrive, but extreme, long-lasting heat is less likely. Part of the sun's energy is taken away to evaporate moisture when rain occurs on a regular basis.

During moderate dry spells (or long-term drought) the landscape behaves more like a desert, opening the door for 100-degree, crop-withering heat during the summer months. In this case more of the sun's energy goes to heating the ground as opposed to evaporating moisture from it.

According to Senior Meteorologist Jim Andrews, "Earlier this summer we had some moisture feed in from the Pacific Ocean. Now we have some moisture feeding in from Mexico and the tropical Pacific Ocean."

The high pressure area has shifted position and is somewhat smaller than it was before.

This is allowing even more moisture to reach portions of the Upper Midwest, Ohio Valley and the East.

"The tropical moisture from Mexico is scattered to very high heights in the atmosphere, when compared to the northern Pacific moisture earlier in the season," Andrews said.

As a result, there is potential to bring very drenching thunderstorms in this setup.

With time moving forward to late summer, the thunderstorm machine, driven largely by the sun, will weaken and diminish. For this reason there remains great concern about ongoing drought or abnormally low rainfall over the central Plains and part of the Midwest.

"The core of the high is settling southward and that is definitely bad news for the southern Plains and much of Texas," Andrews said.

Moving forward for the remainder of the summer, these areas are the most likely to receive little or no rainfall. Some rain graced Texas and the southern Plains during the spring and late winter, but has since greatly tailed off during the Drought of 2012.

In many areas of the central Plains into the Midwest, the rain past and present came too late for corn and in some cases is too little, too late even for soybeans.

At least for heat-weary residents and hard-hit agriculture in the central Plains, the pattern this week at least bring some hope of relief, which is better than no hope at all.

It is possible that the weather pattern this week could be enough to save some farms and ranches in the central Plains that have been hanging on by a thread.