A Frosty Sunday Start
Well Fall is definitely here and you can tell. not only by the temperatures but also by the foliage. I’ve been taking some time off this past week and traveling around the area. Yesterday I stopped in Weston for the Applefest and was struck along route 45 with the trees being near peak color for this time of the year. easily about 2-3 weeks ahead of schedule. Our morning low of 28° was an early “hard” freeze for KC. While most of the metro wasn’t that cold, more in the 28-33° range there was definitely a nice frost to start out the day. Here is a map from the NWS showing the average dates for the 1st heard freeze in the region.
Certainly a few weeks ahead of schedule. Now before you ask, there is no correlation to early freezes and what happens that winter or how much snowfall we do or don’t get. Here is a look at the morning lows…
I thought this blog today will cover many things…so here goes. Did you know that today Seattle will set a record for the driest stretch in their weather history. Sea-Tac airport has had a whopping .03″ of rainfall since July 23rd. This breaks a record set back in the early 1920s. Their next chance of rain is not till later in the week.
Tulsa, OK this AM dropped to 32° for their earliest freeze on record. The previous early freeze was back in 2000.
As far as the weather goes around here…we’ll continue to see our typical ups and downs as far as temperatures go for October. The last few days with highs struggling to make 50° have been the down days…today we transition and tomorrow we should be back into the 60s with near 70° due back on Tuesday. More fronts will be moving through the region over the next few days and you can clearly see the progress of the various airmasses moving through the Plains states thanks to the GFS model. Remember the blues are the colder air and the oranges/reds the warmer air.
The top left map is Tuesday and the bottom left map is Wednesday. So the airmasses move in and then quickly move away which is normal for this time of the year.
I think my last blog about 5 days ago talked about a storm that was sitting off the coast of CA nad how it may turn into our next weather maker. Well here we are 5 days later and it does look like that will be the case, but we’re still about another 5 days away from seeing it move close to us. It’s the swirl in the clouds off the CA coastline.
How it exactly effects us remains to be seen. Ahead of it though warmer air will return towards the end of the week and some moisture should as well. The GFS is sort of in the camp for the potential of some strong/severe weather somewhere in the Plains states next weekend…the EURO is not as bullish with that chance. We are now in the “2nd” severe weather season which usually have a much tougher time producing in the Plains states because of moisture issues, less heating and other factors. Something to watch for for next weekend. There are a lot of things though that could mess this up including another decent front that will be blowing through the region and shunting moisture to the south, how far south though should play a key role in the late week forecast.
That’s about it for today. Have a great Sunday and enjoy the warmer weather tomorrow and the wind 
Joe
