It hit 100F for the high yesterday (Friday May 27th) here in Tucson, so from now until September we'll be tracking consecutive days over 100F. The image above is from Kitt Peak this morning, looking south into the cloudless skies of northern Mexico. The Mexican Plateau has really heated up and 700 mb temperatures are very hot - see map below (700 mb 12 UTC plot from NCAR RAP with my analysis of isotherms).
Note the large area of Mexico and the U.S. southern Plains with 700 mb temperatures over 14C - this entire region thus has 700 mb potential temperatures (theta) of 45C or higher! Quite an impressive slug of hot air. As the 500 mb trough deepens along the west coast, the hot air will be advected northeastward across much of the central and eastern U.S. This morning's NWS NAM forecast for next Tuesday afternoon forecasts 500 mb heights of 5940 m or higher from central Texas to Kentucky.
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Looking south to lower latitudes, we find that currently the air mass along the Pacific coast of Mexico is very dry. The blended PW chart for the eastern Pacific this morning indicates that PW of 50 mm or greater remains off to the southeast of Cabo Correntes, with values around 30 mm just reaching north to around latitude 20 N.
Convection over Mexico yesterday (west of 100 degrees W longitude) remained over the high terrain of Durango and Zacatecas - see visible satellite image below for 2200 UTC.
Hope everyone has a great 3-day weekend. Stoke up those grills and help build that summer-like ridge over the country!
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