KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Last night was quite the night in southeast Florida. This morning, they are still dealing with lots of leftover flooding as a series of storms persisted in one spot (essentially supercells at times) producing potential tornadoes and significant rains.

Looking at radar was amazing because the storms were so stationary, rotating around themselves in a sense and at times exhibiting hook echoes. A rare (even for them) Flash Flood Emergency was up at the same time a Tornado Warning went into effect. A combination that is very rare. More on this in the discussion.

For us, our beautiful weather will continue through tomorrow mostly. Then things sort of go off the rails on Saturday as rain is expected and the potential of falling temperatures with the rain in the region may create temperatures in the 40s in the afternoon.

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Kansas City Forecast:

Today: Sunny and warm. Highs in the upper 70s to near 80 degrees. Gusty winds again to near 30 mph.

Tonight: Fair and pleasant, lows in the mid-50s.

Tomorrow: Partly cloudy, windy and warm with highs into the upper 70s. There may be a few scattered showers/storms in the middle of the day. Rain chances hold off mostly till the overnight.

Saturday: Depending on the timing of the front, we may initially be mild for a bit in the morning then turn colder in the afternoon. 60s to 40s is on the table with rain likely. Blustery as well.

Sunday: Blustery and cooler with highs closer to 60 degrees.

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Historic rain in Florida:

Let’s start with Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Here is a look at radar. While that region and that state will get these tropical downpours with multiple inches of rain, what happened last night was historic. The airport there is believed to have had close to 26 inches of rain, most of which came down over the course of about eight hours. It was raining there earlier in the day, so the grounds were sort of wet to begin with, but again this was unprecedented.

This is a snapshot as the storm was fading away:

Fort Lauderdale is where the yellow east-west road ends on the coast. Notice how they always are just in it!

They essentially got seven months of rain in about eight hours, so obviously this would create devastating flooding. The amount of rain there is considered a 1 in 1,000-year event. And when you think of all the tropical systems, hurricanes, etc. that have affected that region over the years, that is impressive. As a matter of fact, the “official” 24-hour rain record in the state is 23.28 inches set in Key West in 1980. This might have broken it once instruments are verified.

Here is more of a close-up:

I thought this was fascinating.

So he’s calculating 4.6 billion gallons of water in that general area during the entirety of the storm.

Here are some other totals:

Just an incredible event down there and sadly it potentially will be a very expensive event with hundreds of flooded-out cars and homes. When these floods happen in urban areas… not good at all.

Rain chances in Kansas City

Back home, our weather has been wonderful these last few days. Today and really tomorrow won’t be much of an exception.

The system that will be affecting us will initially be a series of weak disturbances tomorrow, which may or may not trigger a few showers or storms. The main system affects us later tomorrow night into Saturday.

Model data isn’t exactly too generous with storms or rain for the region. We should get something, but this may be a case where things mostly split around us. As a result, we may start mild on Saturday morning for a few hours, but then turn chillier during the day, with afternoon temperatures dropping into the 40s with blustery winds. So Saturday isn’t looking so great.

Sunday will be the better of the two days it appears.

The severe weather risks here are very small. There may be a few stronger storms in northwest Missouri and northeast Kansas later Friday night (maybe), but odds are if there are any stronger storms, they would be out towards central Kansas. On Saturday, if there are any stronger storms they would be out towards eastern Missouri.

That’s it for the day, and for awhile as I’ll be on vacation starting tomorrow for about 10 days. So no blogs.

The feature photo comes from Austin Hamilton up in Norwood, Iowa.

Joe