The last blog dived a bit into El Nino and tomorrow’s blog will dive a bit more into that in terms of winter weather in the US and more locally I think. Today’s blog though will bring a smile to those who don’t like the chilly temperatures…as the arctic air has moved away and is being replaced by a milder air mass.
This transition started yesterday as stronger southwest winds moved into the region. These winds pushed the arctic weather (by late October standards) away from the region and now we’re in a warmer air mass. Temperatures this morning started out near freezing, unlike yesterday where we broke a record low for the 1st day of November.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
One sentence forecast: Winds increase as do the temperatures through tomorrow with mostly sunny skies
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Forecast:
Today: Sunny and breezy to windy with highs in the 60° range. Winds may gust to 24-30 MPH
Tonight: Fair and seasonable with lows near 40°
Tomorrow: Mostly sunny and warmer with highs in the mid to upper 60s
Saturday: Variable clouds with rain chances in the PM and evening. Right now the chance is 30%. It won’t be heavy but showers may be out there. Highs in the mid 60s
Sunday: Nice with highs approaching 70°
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Discussion:
Well we started the month with a record low, but that air mass is now gone and things are getting better.
Skies today should be pretty sunny. There are a few clumps of clouds down to the south of the area this morning but those will pass by harmlessly.
Above us the winds are going pretty good this morning. At around 5,000 feet or so the winds this afternoon may increase to over 35 MPH…that’s above us.
During this time of the year especially we can get those stronger winds to “mix down” to he surface. We saw this yesterday and likely will see it again today. This brings down the warmer air aloft towards the ground and allows that warmer air to warm up even more. Yesterday temperatures hit 50° and today I went for 61° on the late news last night expecting temperatures to outperform the model forecasts because of this “mixing” that the models tend to underestimate.
Same may apply again tomorrow…winds and above average temperatures.
There is a wrinkle for Saturday though and that is the potential for a decently strong little fast moving disturbance to come down from the west north west. This wave, strongest on the GFS but also decently strong on the EURO should increase the clouds quickly Saturday afternoon. The problem though is that the lower part of the atmosphere below 10,000 feet is going to be pretty darn dry…and will take a bit of time to saturate as the fast moving disturbance come through.
You can see the wave on the GFS model…this would be for around 7PM Saturday and this shows the little dip in the flow…near the region. Ahead of the black line that shows the wave axis…their is rising air…behind it there is sinking air. The question is does the air rise enough to help to saturate the atmosphere enough to allow clouds to deepen enough…to allow rain to fall and reach the ground.
My concern is that the wave will be strong enough to overcome these obstacles and generate at least some areas of rain and lighter showers. The model placements of this though do vary from northern MO to the Metro area…
Take the GFS idea…with us getting about 1/10″ of rain in a 6 hour period ending at 1AM Sunday.
It’s not much and perhaps it’s more concentrated in northern and northeastern MO
The EURO though is faster and farther south. These are the rain amounts through 7PM Saturday. So taken at face value this would be a faster arrival of the rain chances…and that also would complicate the highs on Saturday. The EURO only gets us into the upper 50s for highs. So you can see my concern for a “forecast bust” on Saturday if this pansout.
The NAM model overnight didn’t really do much for anything, although it did keep us sort of cool with lots of clouds on Saturday. It also has us in a lot of cloud cover on Sunday too.
So there are some questions regarding Saturday. The overnight ensembles do print out some moisture…the GFS…out of 30 members, about half with “something”
The EURO…
Out of 50 members about 38 crank out “something”.
So again you could see my concern and I don’t want you to be surprised. The amounts don’t look that great…likely under 1/10″, if that much…but IF you get some light rain in the area and with the clouds…temperatures may be impacted and not in a good way.
Consider this a heads up and a shot across the bow to Saturday.
Temperatures overall should remain above average (we’ll see about Saturday) into the middle of next week…some chillier weather may shove in for a few days afterwards.
Oh and I leave you with this…
We average a measly 1.1″ of snow in November.
There is no snow in the forecast for awhile.
The feature photo comes from Tedd Scofield
Joe
