Daily briefing: Big changes for East

The heat wave breaks across the Northeast, Midwest and Great Lakes today. However, the South and western Plains will contend with big summer thunderstorms. These details along with our daily tropical outlook is published every weekday at 5 a.m. ET.

A slow-moving cold front will break the heat wave across the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic and Great Lakes. The WeatherRadar shows it slowly moving into the South, Southeast and southern Mid-Atlantic, triggering thunderstorms and downpours. Texas, the South, the Gulf Coast and the Southeast will all deal with storms to close out the work week.

The TemperatureRadar shows high temperatures in the 70s and low 80s throughout the central and northern Plains, upper and central Mississippi and Ohio valleys, Midwest, Mid-Atlantic and the Northeast. These highs are 15 to 20 degrees cooler than the 90s seen over the past several days and about 5 to 10 degrees cooler than normal for the first day of August.

The western high Plains and Rockies will also have a few strong afternoon storms. These storms could produce damaging winds and large hail, too.

The Southwest, California and most of the Northwest will begin the new month with sunshine. A few thunderstorms could pop up in the northern Rockies. Western highs will vary from the 100 to 110 range across the Southwest to the 80s and 90s in most other places.

The Atlantic hurricane basin, including the Gulf, Caribbean Sea and the tropical Atlantic, remains quiet and will be so through the weekend.

Thinking about the weekend and even next week? Use our 14-day forecast to make your plans. Click here for more details.