Thanks for sending in your question to Severe Weather Center 9. Even though it sounds strange, it can get too hot for thunderstorms to develop. In the late spring and summer, the temperatures at the surface get very hot, like this week when we are in the mid to upper 90s. Thunderstorms like this warm air at the surface but they prefer to have colder air aloft in the sky. This all stems from the basic principle that warm air rises.

Imagine a hot air balloon, they rise because of hot air trapped inside the balloon. The balloon will keep rising as long as the air surrounding the balloon is cooler. The greater this difference in air temperature, the faster the balloon will rise. If the air surrounding the balloon is just as warm as the air inside the balloon, then the balloon will go nowhere.

The same principles work with clouds. If the balloon is a storm cloud, then it needs cooler air aloft to rise and grow into a large storm. When the air is too warm aloft, the storm clouds will only rise so far before stopping. We see this with cumulus clouds in the heat of the day that never really get that tall. And therefore, we get no rain.

Meteorologists call this a cap in the atmosphere, as the warm air acts as a lid, suppressing the storm development. Usually we don't see this happen until later in the summertime but this year, the pattern just showed up early.