KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The weather pattern overall is going to be pretty settled for a while with minimal rain chances over the coming week with one exception: tomorrow morning. A cold front will be working into the region and should bring scattered showers and perhaps thunderstorms in the region.

The coverage of the rain may not be the greatest. Some areas will likely get nothing and the overall rain amounts don’t look to be anything that noteworthy, but it will be needed because of the combination of mild-to-warm days and lower humidity on the way into the middle of next week.

The latest drought report came out this morning with little change from week to week. Remember we’re into the wettest time of the year now and the wettest 30 days of the year as well into the middle of June. So the moisture is needed and this front coming through may not deliver all the goods regarding it.

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Kansas City Forecast:

Today: Mostly sunny and mild with highs in the lower 80s.

Tonight: Partly cloudy with perhaps a few scattered showers near daybreak, especially north of Interstate 70. Lows closer to 60 degrees.

Tomorrow: Rain chances are there for the morning into the early afternoon before drier weather moves in. Winds increase a bit in the afternoon as well from the north as cooler air flows into the region. Highs in the lower 70s if we get some sunshine, but if not, a bit cooler.

Saturday: Delightful. Lows in the upper 40s at daybreak and lower 70s in the afternoon.

Sunday: Milder with highs in the mid-to-upper 70s. Wonderful day ahead.

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Discussion:

I thought this morning we’d start with the drought report. As I mentioned, no real changes locally at least.

Severe drought conditions continue on the southeast side of the metro into Jackson County and along and south of the U.S. 50 corridor towards the Lake of the Ozarks area. Northwest of the I-35 corridor, not too terrible at this point.

Regionally, Kansas is still a mess. It’s really affected the winter wheat crop and not in a good way. The winter wheat tour is in progress and the yields aren’t good this season.

Current drought conditions continue across southern and western Kansas.

On the Missouri side, localized drought conditions are worse towards the Lake of the Ozarks region. Areas farther south and north of there are actually okay.

Meanwhile back to Kansas:

The above are just a sampling of conditions out there. Not looking good overall. It can be a feast-or-famine situation out there year to year, and this year isn’t looking great.

Interestingly, there is a good amount of rain forecast out there over the coming week or so.

It may help in some cases, but it may be too late in other cases.

For us locally, we do have at least some rain in the forecast. Not a slam dunk though for all and probably not a lot. Ill-timed fronts that arrive in the morning with limited moisture overall and even less instability aren’t very exciting to me, at least when we’re in a position to really need a good 1-3-inch soaker, and this won’t be that.

Rain in KC Friday

Here is the front this morning moving into the Plains:

As the front comes into the region, showers and storms with it and behind it should develop before daybreak tomorrow. Various models give the area anywhere from a few hundredths to close to roughly 1/2 inch of rain. There may be a few storms as well in the morning and perhaps some localized areas could do better, but it’s not a very exciting transition and I worry that some may not get a drop from this.

The problem with that is that the next chance may come in about a week. So odds are we’ll be needing the sprinkler again heading into the next week. The good news is that this should set us up for a fabulous top 10 spring weekend.

Why are skies smoky in KC?

Also of potential is that behind this front tomorrow, assuming we see breaks in the clouds you may notice another batch of hazy skies as more wildfire smoke penetrates the area. The RAP model in particular is showing this potential.

I can see the smoke layer across the upper Midwest and the northern Rockies, so it makes sense. Sometimes as well behind a front that smoke may work itself down through the atmosphere. So it’s not out of the question we may actually smell some smoke tomorrow or tomorrow evening as well.

Close to 5,000 square miles of terrain has burned in Canada from these fires. It’s a lot of smoke that has been put into the atmosphere up there. It’s been wafting along with various winds in the mid-levels of the atmosphere to some extent for weeks now. It just takes the right flow above us to bring it into the Plains and we should be setting up for that tomorrow.

Okay, that’s it for today. Let’s hope for some coverage for the rain tomorrow morning. It may need to last us for awhile.

The feature photo comes from @kcdroneshow of the smoky sunset from last night.

Joe