KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Well something is better than nothing, and some areas from Kansas City westwards and south saw something yesterday in terms of rain. Around the metro, the rain totals were a few hundredths to perhaps a quarter of an inch. Some areas south and west of the area saw closer to 2 inches worth.

Today’s weather will be calmer. A lack of focus for storms should prevent much coverage overall. Perhaps something spotty, but nothing glaring showing up for today. Tomorrow the chances do look better and perhaps more widespread around the region. It won’t be an all-day thing. There should be periods of drier weather mixed in, but the chance of rain will be around for most of the day.

Occasional chances continue into the weekend before we start to see a drying trend work in for next week which looks to be really nice at this point, with cooler mornings and mild afternoons.

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Kansas City Forecast:

Today: Partly cloudy with highs in the lower 80s. There may be an isolated shower/storm somewhere out there.

Tonight: Fair skies with temperatures in the 60s.

Tomorrow: Showers and occasional storms possible at any point. Highs may be knocked down a bit into the lower 70s.

Friday: Partly cloudy and warm. Highs in the lower 80s. Small chance of a storm or shower somewhere.

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Discussion:

Let’s start with the rain situation. You can get an idea of who saw the most rain yesterday via the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow Network:

There was some severe weather out towards the west and south of the metro as well. Mostly gusty winds in excess of 60 mph, but that was a long-lived complex of storms that rumbled through Kansas for most of the day yesterday.

The weird thing about yesterday in the weather world was the fact that the winds increased after all the rain was done in the metro (for the most part). This was after the rains mostly moved well south of the area. Up at KCI, the winds gusted to 40 mph between 7:30 and 8 p.m.

Why though?

As the complex of storms moved away, a combination of the rain-cooled air and the warmer air to the northwest of the area conspired to create a combination of weather features. One was what is referred to as a bubble high, and the other referred to a wake low.

The rain-cooled air nearest the storm complex is cooler (60s), but a bit farther away that air starts warming up as the air is sinking. This combination creates an area of higher and lower pressure. The gradient between the two helps to accelerate the winds, hence we saw stronger winds in the region well after the bigger storms moved away from the region. So that’s why we got the better winds after the fact.

Again though for the metro, there was something, but not a lot for rain. Olathe Executive Airport in Kansas has had about 1 inch of rain in the last 45-plus days… not great.

At least we got a great sunset!

There has been some good rains farther south in the region where the worst of the drought is located, so it will be interesting to see if there are any changes in the drought report tomorrow for down there.

Meanwhile we’ll be tracking a disturbance coming up from the south tomorrow. As it gets closer, rain chances will again go up, perhaps in wider fashion for the metro in terms of coverage, but I’m not expecting a ton in terms of amounts. If we can get 1/10-1/2 inch of moisture, that would be great!

That disturbance is down in Texas today.

It will slowly migrate north today and help to develop showers/storms in southern Missouri tomorrow morning that will then spread northwards as the day goes along. That, combined with areas that develop on top of the region in the “lift” associated with the wave, should mean an at times off and on rainy later morning into the afternoon. Again, I don’t think it will be a continuous rain, but it should be out there. As the wave moves northwards, other weak disturbances will be rotating around it, so that’s why the showers and storms will be somewhat broken up in nature as everything moves towards the north.

You can see the evolution of this disturbance coming up from the south as well as other weaker disturbances sort of spinning around the main storm.

I guess we’ll take what we can get. This also may impact the Royals afternoon game tomorrow as well.

The severe weather risk appears low to me for this situation. Too many showers/storms robbing the atmosphere of much instability plus cooler temperatures as well.

Weekend weather in KC

After that, the atmosphere again gets rather nebulous with no overwhelming signals for rain. We will have more instability on Friday, but no real trigger for widespread storminess. Perhaps something isolated could pop up in the heating of the day. There may be a cap in place as well, so that should reduce potential activity I think. Same goes for Saturday, no big signal for rain right now.

Sunday is a bit more questionable with the potential but not set in stone chance of storms in the region for Mothers Day. There are some signs of series of weak disturbances coming up from the southwest. That would probably set the atmosphere in motion for storms. The GFS has this idea. The EURO though, which has been banging the drum on the storm chances sort of backed off a bit in the latest data. Both pieces of data do show a weak front that will be coming through at some point during the day. I do have a tough time thinking that it would come through dry during this time of the year.

That front will usher in drier air and somewhat cooler air as well. This sets us up for nice weather next week which overall looks pretty dry at this point.

What a sunset last night. Departing rains and setting sun is the combination for great colors and the sky looked like it was on fire for awhile! The feature photo is from Chuck Carbajal down in Lee’s Summit, Missouri.

Joe