Heat and Fire Weather Concerns in the West; Excessive Rainfall Possible in the South-Central U.S.

Heat will build over the Intermountain West and the Southwest the next couple of days. Lightning from dry thunderstorms can create new fire starts and combined with gusty winds may cause a fire to rapidly grow in Oregon and northern California. Flash flooding will be possible in New Mexico and west Texas today, as well as parts of the southern and central Plains due to slow moving thunderstorms. Read More >

- Map displaying storm reports. Click the image to view an interactive map of the reports.

- Visible Satellite loop during the afternoon hours of July 1, 2012

- Chronological sequence of radar images of a severe thunderstorm over northeastern Chesterfield County, SC around 2:30 pm. Note how the core of higher reflectivity values (60+ dbz are white) grows to over 40,000 ft by frame 4 and then descends to the surface in image 5.