Heat, Humidity and Humility

Thursday 10 a.m.

With hot air in the middle of the country and a ridge building into the Great Lakes and Northeast, the main theme of the weather pattern is to expect midsummer warmth and uncomfortable for the holiday weekend from Chicago to New York City and on south.

So why is humility part of the headline? With a front separating very hot air from much cooler air meandering across the Great Lakes and Northeast... and a few disturbances embedded in the generally southwesterly flow aloft, certain details cannot be confidently predicted. It would be nice to say with confidence how the weather will turn out for each event on Memorial Day.

I view this as a situation where our service can be particularly helpful to you. By checking your accuweather app on your iphone or other mobile device, you can see in seconds whether there are showers or thunderstorms nearby. You can make a short animation showing where the showers have moved and whether they are increasing, decreasing or staying the same in terms of shape and intensity. Just like that, you have changed a forecast of partly sunny, hot and humid with a chance of a thunderstorm to something you can use directly for a short-term forecast. Combine that with satellite pictures, our weather stories and other information about both routine and threatening weather... and you have a very potentially valuable tool.

Here is the video from this morning.