KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Some of you this afternoon are wondering where the rain went, while others had over 1 inch of rain with several hours of thunder as well earlier today. The storms were expected to fade as they came into the metro, and fade they did as they crossed over to the Missouri side. Areas on the east of the metro saw little to no rain, while the west side got a good soaking.
IF you want the rain, another chance comes on Sunday, then again next Tuesday, as several opportunities for more moisture are showing up. The Sunday system though may not be for all.
Overall, temperatures are expected to be above average for awhile. Tomorrow will be a sneaky hot day, no records and decent dew points, but if you’re out there in the sunshine, you will feel it I think!
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Kansas City Forecast:
Tonight: There may be some scattered late night storms southeast of the metro. Aside from that, variable clouds and pleasant with lows in the upper 50s.
Tomorrow: Sunny and hot. Highs in the mid-to-upper 80s.
Sunday: Storms/rain are possible into the early afternoon. This may affect the start of the big race out at Kansas Speedway. Highs in the 70s.
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Discussion:
The rains were plentiful where they came… and uneventful for others.
Rain totals via Stormwatch:
KCI had 1.23 inches worth… not bad.
Doppler estimates show the sharp cut-off:
It seems roughly the I-35 corridor on the Missouri side was the cut off, and roughly the Interstate 40 corridor on the Missouri side as well, almost 69 highway on the Kansas side too… so many areas went lacking.
Again another chance on Sunday.
The bigger weather story nationally was the derecho that plowed through the Northern Plains yesterday. This video from the NWS in Sioux Falls, South Dakota shows the advancing wall of dirt/dust and rain.
That is a sight to see.
Winds were intense with dozens of wind reports of 75-plus mph. Very uncommon and the distance these strong winds traveled makes it a derecho. Similar in scope to what happened this past December, remember that?
As of this afternoon, now over 60 reports of 75-plus mph winds.
One of the strongest derechos we’ve seen, including more reports that the Iowa system a couple of years ago of the strongest winds.
I saw one report of 107 mph winds in South Dakota from thunderstorm straight line winds, not tornadic. It’s equivalent though to a strong EF-1 tornado damage indicator though.
I also saw a 135 mph gust, although that is unconfirmed.
That was a fascinating system to watch from afar. In a sense, luckily it didn’t go through areas that could’ve had more destruction, but it was pretty bad in spots up there.
Amazingly only four reports of tornados. This was mostly a wind event. As a matter of fact, this is now No. 2 in terms of the worst derecho in modern times I believe, at least in terms of “significant” wind reports. We’re not far away from it being bigger than the December event from last year.
Also unusual was the direction of movement of the derecho, going from the south-southwest to the north-northeast. Typically we see these move from northwest to southeast or west-northwest to south-southeast… not this one though. There was another event back in early June of 2020 that was in the Rockies that sort of did the same movement.
We continue to sort of luck out with regards to severe weather locally. That’s fine by me.
Have a great weekend and enjoy tomorrow.
The feature photo comes from @BlueSpringsWx of the shelf cloud that was moving through the region this morning.
Joe
