(Radio Iowa) – Forecasters say some areas of northwest Iowa that are already seeing record flooding may get more rain late today and tonight (Monday). Making a bad situation even worse, National Weather Service meteorologist Jim Lee says the summer heat will be oppressive for the next few days as a Heat Advisory is posted for much of Iowa’s western half from 1 o’clock this afternoon until 8 tonight. “The high temperatures will probably only be in about the lower 90s or so,” Lee says, “but when you factor in the humidity, the heat index will be approaching 100 degrees at times, both today and Tuesday.” Some areas will feel much hotter, he says, as the forecast heat index for Council Bluffs late today is 111-degrees.

A few weeks ago, Iowa emerged from a drought that had lasted nearly four years, though now it’s almost like the rain showers are trying to make up for lost time. “Unfortunately, who’d of thought a few months ago we’d be wanting the rain to stop when we were in drought, but we just can’t quite seem to get out of this active pattern,” Lee says. “We do have more thunderstorm chances forecast, higher chances will be from this evening through tonight and then again on Tuesday afternoon and evening and we may have some severe weather with those.” Parts of the flooded region got more than ten inches of rain in the past week, which is some eight times more than normal, but Lee is hoping the approaching storms won’t make the flooding worse.

“At this time, the threat of that is more limited. The heavy rains that we had a couple of days ago are from storms that were moving repeatedly over the same areas,” Lee says. “Most of the time from now through Tuesday when we’re expecting one or more rounds of thunderstorms, the storms look like they’ll be moving a little more quickly, so the rain could still come down heavily, but hopefully we can avoid any kind of totals like we saw a few days ago.”

Lee says cooler weather is forecast to arrive on Wednesday, though the chances for rain also reappear on Thursday and Friday.