"The weather could provide fireworks this holiday weekend" by Lawrence Weather Watch / LJWorld.com

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The weather could provide fireworks this holiday weekend

2007 probably was the worst in recent memory when some storms started to rotate right over the top of Topeka producing funnel clouds and forcing the evacuation of the large Spirit of Kansas event at Lake Shawnee, but just about every warm-weather holiday is filled with it's own share of severe weather.

This weekend may be another one of those times. A set-up for Friday afternoon and early evening has many, but not all, the ingredients for some severe weather. A decent low pressure area should form over central Kansas and move east during the evening. South of the low, somewhat of a dryline will be in place. A warm front will be stretched across Northeast Kansas late in the day. Those areas will be watched as the location for storm development. In the warm, humid air south and east of the surface low the winds will be from the southeast. When you put all of this together, the end result could be supercell thunderstorms capable of some rotation.

That COULD happen. But the fly in the ointment on this one is that there is a layer of some warmer air overhead that may work in keeping a "lid" on all the activity. If a few storms break through that "lid", or cap, then they could be strong to severe. However, in cases like this it comes down to a matter of a couple degrees in whether or not we get any storms.

Overall, since most of the ingredients are in place and the air should be converging together and lifting fairly well over portions of Northeast and North Central Kansas, and since it's kind of a holiday (at least part of a holiday weekend)...I'd say we'll end up with something. I guess there goes my weekend!

By Matt Miller

July 3, 2009

Lawrence Weather Watch