Dry air Northeast quadrant making it comfortable............dew points starting to pool in Upper Midwest.

Heat and high humidity coming up the Plains.....feels like temperature!

Highs days 3-7 shows  Very warm/hot in many places. Southwest Cornbelt stays hot.

How do these temperatures compare to average at this time of year. Above average in the hottest time of year!:

High temperature departures:

Low Temperature Departures:

CENTRAL Cornbelt drying out(MO/IL/IN/OH)...........though not completely dry everywhere. New rains emerging late week 1.

Forecast for rains below:

Day 1:

http://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/qpf/fill_94qwbg.gif?1526306199054

24 Hour Precipitation Total - Day 1

Day 2:

http://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/qpf/fill_98qwbg.gif?1528293750112

24 Hour Precipitation Total - Day 2

Day 3:

http://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/qpf/fill_99qwbg.gif?1528293842764

24 Hour Precipitation Total - Day 3

Days 4-5:

http://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/qpf/95ep48iwbg_fill.gif?1526306162

Days 6-7:

http://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/qpf/97ep48iwbg_fill.gif?1526306162

Days 4-5                     Valid 12z 07/11/18 - 12z 07/13/18      [contours only]

Days 6-7                     Valid 12z 07/13/18 - 12z 07/15/18      [contours only]

http://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.govcdx /qpf/p168i.gif?1530796126

Severe Storm Risk today.......... far Upper Midwest.  Main jet stream shifted.  Press your cursor on the map for full screen.

https://www.spc.noaa.gov/products/outlook/

Current Day 1 Outlook	Forecaster: Hart/Kerr Issued: 18/1240Z Valid: 18/1300Z - 19/1200Z Forecast Risk of Severe Storms: Slight Risk
Current Day 2 Outlook	Forecaster: Bunting Issued: 18/0600Z Valid: 19/1200Z - 20/1200Z Forecast Risk of Severe Storms: Marginal Risk
Current Day 3 Outlook	Forecaster: Bunting Issued: 18/0731Z Valid: 20/1200Z - 21/1200Z Forecast Risk of Severe Storms: Marginal Risk
Current Day 4-8 Outlook

Not much Excessive Rainfall threat.

Current Day 1 Forecast Valid 12Z 07/05/18 - 12Z 07/06/18

Day 1 Threat Area in Text Format  

Current Day 2 Forecast

https://weather.com/maps/currentusweather

Here is the latest radar image. 

http://www.nws.noaa.gov/radar_tab.php

Satellite picture.

Rains the past 24 hours.  Mosty dry!           

You can go to this link to see rain totals from recent time periods:

https://water.weather.gov/precip/

Go to precipitation, then scroll down to pick a time frame. Hit states to get the borders to see locations better. Under products, you can hit "observed" or "Percent of norma

Temperature anomalies from the GFS ensembles:

Current.........Heat in N.Plains to Southwest....cool Northeast.

Day 7 Anomolies, most intense heat West but widespread heat across the country.

Day 14 temp Anomalies. Most intense heat West, not as hot East?

Last, 6Z GFS has huge dome from the S.Plains to the S.Cornbelt, eastward, with 100+ temps. Outlier???      

gfs_namer_360_200_wnd_ht	gfs_namer_360_500_vort_ht
gfs_namer_360_1000_500_thick	gfs_namer_360_850_temp_ht

Operational GFS continues to be the most bullish with the week 2 dome dominating much of the country.  Latest 12Z GFS below:

gfs_namer_360_200_wnd_ht	gfs_namer_360_500_vort_ht
gfs_namer_360_1000_500_thick	gfs_namer_360_850_temp_ht

WOW! I'm not sure what to think about the extended weather.

The last 12z European model has an upper trough in the Midwest early in week 2, then a  mega dome at the end of week 2:

The latest NWS automated extended guidance is the most bearish its been in over 2 weeks:

Temperature Probability 6-10 day

Precipitation Probability

Temperature Probability 8-14 day

Precipitation Probability

Mike,

 I assume you realize that the 360 hour European control is near useless as it has next to no forecast credibility. As you even said yourself, it jumps around wildly from one run to the next. So, it has little value and is not taken seriously by any forecasters I follow. All it is is a low resolution version of the unperturbed initialization of the operational model. It is essentially just one run of 52 members of the Euro ensemble. It is slightly less bad than each of the other individual ensemble members since the others use perturbed initializations, but that's not saying much. I mean the 360 hour Euro control map is no better than a GFS map at 360 hours and we know how little value they have as they jump all over, too. The Euro control may even be worse due to the low resolution. For 360 hours, I'd much prefer to look at the GFS and Euro ensemble means though even those have pretty low credibility that far out in time. NG doesn't care about as the market is currently down.

Excellent points Larry!

However,

The ensembles have the heat ridge much farther west.........but the 8-14 day has alot of below normal temps closer to the heat ridge and above temps along the East Coast.........where the ensembles have an upper level trough. 

It's just not matching up. Recent operational GFS solutions have shown the heat ridge similar to this last European control model but without much support from the individual ensembles.

One thing that looks likely is that there is more rain in this forecast than there was last week.