Severe thunderstorms likely today before the heat comes later in the week – Kansas Agriculture Forecast 6/17/2025

General Central/Eastern Kansas Forecast

Short-Term (Tuesday)

Today looks to be a complicated day in terms of the type of severe weather setup most of central and eastern Kansas will be facing. An MCS is currently making its way (or at least is almost through) the area this morning and has brought isolated pockets of heavy rainfall to some.

Total potential rainfall through Tuesday // Courtesy: Pivotal Weather

These thunderstorms will dictate how the next potential round will evolve later this afternoon and this evening. Current thinking is as a shortwave trough and associated stationary front/cold front will work its way into the state in the afternoon hours and help provide sufficient lift for scattered thunderstorm development in central Kansas. Given moderate low-level shear and strong instability, supercells capable of very large hail and a couple tornadoes would be the primary threat with these initial storms. Any residual outflow boundaries that get left behind by the morning round of storms will also provide a focal point for tornadoes should a storm be able to take advantage of it. These storms will also not be moving very fast, so any intense storm could produce a localized flash flooding risk as well. As the night goes on, these storms will keep moving towards eastern Kansas and coalesce into a cluster/MCS mode, where the main severe hazards will transition to damaging to destructive straight-line winds and an embedded tornado or two.

Potential radar picture for today // Courtesy: NOAA Global Systems Laboratory Dynamic Ensemble-based Scenarios for IDSS: DESI

Long-Term (Wednesday-Monday)

Storms will fully exit the area by early tomorrow morning along with the weak cold front. Behind the front, temperatures throughout the day will reach the low to mid 80s, which will feel pleasant compared to where we are headed towards by the end of the week. Past tomorrow, temperatures will regularly reach the low to mid 90s every day through the weekend as high-pressure builds. Heat indices, especially by the weekend, will look to make a run at the upper 90s to low 100s, so heat stress and drying will begin to become more of a concern.