There were some pretty good thunderstorms last night, especially on the east side of the Metro where a few spots had some quarter+ sized hail into eastern Jackson County and perhaps Lafayette County. KCI snuck in about 1/3″ of rain, too.

Many areas didn’t get that much rain at all but there were definite downpours out there. The heaviest rains seemed to be up north and out east of the KC metro.

Things this morning are pretty quiet with the exception of a few showers/sprinkles up towards northern MO. Overall winds and warmer temperatures will be the feature of the next 2 days in the area as we wait on a slow moving cold front that should pass through sometime on Friday.

The main issue is whether or not we get strong storms in the region again later tomorrow night into early Friday morning ahead of the front itself.

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One sentence forecast: Windy and warmer with shifting winds on Friday ushering in colder temperatures.

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Forecast:

Today: Mostly sunny, breezy and warm with highs into the lower 80s and winds gusting to 20-30 MPH

Tonight: Fair and breezy with mild temperatures and lows in the mid 60s

Tomorrow: Partly cloudy, windy and warm again with highs in the lower 80s. Rain/storm chances increase later in the evening into early Friday morning

Friday: Sunny to start then turning cloudy in the afternoon with windy conditions. Highs in the mid 60s before falling into the 50s in the afternoon with blustery conditions

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Discussion:

The low level jet stream did it’s dirty work last night and color me impressed. Low level moisture wasn’t that great and I wasn’t sure that things would totally come together where things happened. I sort of felt that the better chances were going to be east and northeast of the Metro.

Mother Nature will do that sometimes!

Aside from winds and warmer days, the next couple of days are going to be pretty good here. The next issue is the chance of stronger storms in the region later tomorrow night. as a strong storm system develops and moves into the Plains region.

Attached to that storm will be a cold front and a dry line…although the cold front and dry line may merge at some point tomorrow night. There are still questions about the storms timing and (at least to me) how much coverage of the storms there will be.

Sometimes when powerful storms are towards the NW of here into Nebraska especially…an initial thrust of storms will develop and race towards the NNE or NE and affect mainly NW MO and NE KS, while the southern part of the storms sort of struggles and weakens as they come off the better focus for development.

This option is on the table because the instability closer to the State Line will be less, and even lower towards or after 12AM Friday morning. One of our short range models this morning came out with this solution…starting at 12AM Friday

IF this is sort of the way things play out there would be a risk of stronger storms in NE KS and NW MO…towards the NW of the Metro.

Then 2AM…

Then 4AM Friday

The data above is from the HRRR model

I won’t show all the hi res NAM model from this morning but it’s even less impressive. Suffice it to say…12AM Friday morning. Meh.

Neither model is totally right BUT they may be giving us clues that should be watched. Again with a strong surface low in NE…and a weak push to a front from that low in the Plains…these scenarios can play out like the the models above are showing.

It’s not the greatest of set-ups from a moisture standpoint and certainly not from an instability standpoint but it still must be watched.

The SPC is indeed doing that with a level 2 risk of severe storms from the State Line westwards.

I sort of agree with this…and I do think that areas towards NW MO and NE KS are more “under the gun” compared to the immediate Metro area for later tomorrow night.

The next issue continues to be the game forecast. My suggestion it to be prepared for late game rain chances but the hope remains that whatever is out there is still west and northwest of the Metro as the game concludes.

You can see though that we’re playing with a couple of hours of leeway here and one thought in my mind is IF something weaker develops earlier to the SW of the region and zips up towards the NE…that at least some earlier rains could come during the 2nd half. So again just be prepared for rain and hopefully it will work out.

I don’t have enough confidence in NOTHING happening during or immediately after the game…I sort of am leaning that way but I’m still not 100% in that camp yet.

Regardless how this all plays out…the front will make it through on Friday morning. We should be in the dry slot of the storm to start the day…meaning sunshine and perhaps a lot of it…then the wrap around moisture will come into the region sometime in the afternoon allowing clouds to rapidly spill in.

This will allow temperatures to warm up a bit in the morning (since we’re starting mild anyway) and then drop sometime Friday afternoon, potentially some 10-15°.

Friday night lights will be chilly and blustery!

These same clouds are likely to impact the area on Saturday and perhaps Sunday as well, especially in the morning hours on Sunday.

This still creates issues for the eclipse viewing on Saturday. The projected cloud cover off last nights EURO run isn’t optimistic around 1PM Saturday…which is the data point. The Eclipse maxes out earlier than that. The 100s represent cloudy conditions

There is still some hope of some breaks in the clouds, which will be around 3,000-7,000 feet up and perhaps areas farther south have a better chance of seeing the carve out of the sun.

Also of note…I can’t promise a lot of coverage for the rain with this set-up. In some ways it screams split around many parts of the KC metro to me.

With that said though, IF you don’t get the rain that you want…it may be another 5+ days before another chance comes our way later next Wednesday or next Thursday (which doesn’t look overly impressive).

The feature photo is from @BlueSpringsWx of the hail from last night out towards eastern Jackson Co.

Joe