Chinook

Have I ever seen 109 in Montana? I don't know. I know I've seen 105+ in South Dakota

I think I'm starting to notice the forest fire smoke. Things are just a little whitish-yellow high in the sky.

Sorry guys. The forest fire smoke has to happen some time. At least it's not a fire in Colorado. (Not that I know of.) In the next week, the NWS says there will be just some light rains above 6000ft with the monsoon moisture, so, drought values shouldn't change much for the positive.

Oh here we go, new infusion of forest fire smoke from Canada. Don't know if you guys notice it. Also the NWS has air quality alert posted (not sure what the AQI is)

Comparisons of the Super-derecho of June 29, 2012 to the derecho/severe event of a couple days ago. Obviously, the storm of a couple days ago did not continue much toward Ohio or the East Coast. So, a huge difference there. Somewhere back in my distant memory, I think I saved a SPC mesoanalysis of 9000 J/kg of MUCAPE on the night before the super-derecho (June 29, 00z) but I can't seem to be able to prove such a high value existed. The archived ILX shows 7481 J/kg in the morning. So, yeah. Mega-CAPE Mesoscale discussion from June 29, 2012 a couple of days ago

so there was a hurricane gust at Chicago. Don't land any planes at O'Hare!

about a dozen more storm reports just showed up on my screen in the Peoria vicinity

three tornado warnings for the outer metro area

this is the craziest velocity so far. Tornado?

I guess this is a tornado now

brief tornado(es) in NW Des Moines

Chicago area rainfall (Jul 12-15)

Chicago severe-warned storm (60mph recently at Woodridge)

tornado warning near Geneva IL

New severe thunderstorm watch for this area, valid until 1:00 central time