Dangerous weather is in storm for parts of the Midwest during the next 72-hours.  Flash Flood Threat The dark green is a flash flood watch. The light green has the same meaning as a flash flood watch. There the possibility that some areas may have more than one foot  of rain.  Tornado Threat The brown area has a significant risk of tornadoes. Damaging Thunderstorm Winds The colors refer to the probability of wind gusts 60 mph or above. The red areas have an enhanced  risk and yellow area has a significant  risk. The hatched area is where wind gusts of 75 mph or above are forecasted to occur. This same area is where large hail is forecasted to occur.  I will update on this situation later today. 

In case you received a Father's Day or graduation gift card, may I suggest Warnings: The True Story of How Science Tamed the Weather .  The newest review at Amazon: Verified Purchase A wonderful accounting of the state-of-the-art of forecasting and  weather warnings by one of the people that invented and  developed them. Mike Smith recounts how we got to where  we are today. It’s a terrific read. Here is the latest rating from Goodreads. If you are looking for a great, uplifting read, this is it!

Update: 10:30pm Wednesday At this point, the forecasts below look good.  Increasingly, it appears that a period of excessive rain will develop over part of the area outlined in red. The thunderstorms with heavy rain will begin tonight and with continue off and on until Saturday morning.  While it is too soon to pinpoint the area that will receive the heaviest rain, I want to bring this to your attention as the area of maximum rain could be more than five inches.  The NWS has issued a flash flood watch for Thursday night for the area shaded in green.

The areas in color will experience incredible heat over the next few days. By Monday, it is possible that all-time (since records have been kept) heat records will fall in the states of Washington and Oregon. In many areas, they do not have adequate air conditioning.  Please be aware, especially in you plan to travel in these areas. 

This is perfect. This is a really insightful comment. His full article is here . 

While the Midwest corn belt badly needs rain, the 5-7" over the next seven days being forecasted may be too much of a good thing. 

Yesterday, as American made more headlines pertaining to their operational issues, they  floated this absurd excuse for their issues: The only thing "unprecedented" about the weather this spring has been how little bad weather there has been. Drought over the west (no thunderstorms or low clouds), the first May in history without a tornado EF-3 intensity or stronger, etc.  Here is the genuine reason. They don't have enough pilots. One of the worst economic things our government ever did was allow the airline industry to merge into just four primary carriers. There's little to no genuine competition and we are the losers.