Short Range Forecast Discussion NWS Weather Prediction Center College Park MD 126 AM EDT Fri Jul 05 2019 Valid 12Z Fri Jul 05 2019 - 12Z Sun Jul 07 2019 ...Southern Alaska continues to bake and will flirt with all-time record heat through the weekend... ...Slight risk of excessive rainfall across the Midwest & Central/Northern Plains Friday.... ...Slight risk of excessive rainfall for the central High Plains & Northeast Saturday... A strengthening high pressure system over much of Alaska is expected to continue to foster dry and significant heat for southern portions of the state. Anchorage set an all-time record high on Thursday and the forecast for the region remains similar into early next week. The stable conditions accompanying this ridge should lead to air quality issues in and near the Kenai Peninsula where brush fires continue to burn. Downstream across the Pacific Northwest, an upper level disturbance is expected to strengthen and drop slowly southeast, which should lead to some cooling across the region and lead to isolated to widely scattered shower and thunderstorm activity each afternoon and evening within the coastal ranges and Cascades as well as the northern Continental Divide. A front across the northern Plains, Upper Midwest, and upper Mississippi Valley will make slow and steady progress to the southeast into Sunday, and will act as a focus for showers and thunderstorms from the northern Plains through the Midwest (where an slight risk of excessive rainfall exists on Friday) into portions of the Ohio Valley and Northeast (where a slight risk of excessive rainfall exists on Saturday). In the warmer and more tropical air mass to the southeast, scattered thunderstorms are expected across much of the South into the Mid-Atlantic states, some of which may contain locally heavy rainfall. High temperatures will be 100+ in the Desert Southwest, but otherwise be in the 80s and 90s across southern Alaska and much of the lower 48, outside of the northern Plains, the highest elevations of the Appalachians, and higher elevations of the Rockies where highs in the 70s will be more prevalent. Roth Graphics available at www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/basicwx/basicwx_ndfd.php