Well, it was nice while it lasted. Temperatures yesterday were 20° above average and it’s been above average for eight straight days, and technically nine because today’s high will go down as 67-68° or so since that’s where we were around 12AM this morning.

Things though have changed, and not in a good way as a cold front has moved through. Winds on the north side gusted to 30 MPH around 4:30 AM this morning and that was the cold front.

That front swept farther south and southwards in a couple of hours, and thus concludes our warm interval. Yesterday we got to about 77°. Wind chill factors this afternoon will be in the 30s.

Welcome to fall… or winter?

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One sentence forecast: Blustery with drier weather developing. Hopefully some late day sunshine.

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Forecast

Today: Colder air continues to flow into the region with temperatures holding pretty steady in the mid-40s or so. There may be some late day sunshine. Wind chills into the 30s this afternoon. Some drizzle around this morning

Tonight: Clearing and colder with lows in the low-to-mid 30s

Tomorrow: Increasing clouds and chilly with highs in the mid 40s. Rain is possible sometime in the afternoon toward the evening. Not pleasant then.

Sunday: There is still a chance of a rain to wintry mix, especially north and west of the I-35 corridor. Some actual light snow is possible across northern MO. Cold, too, with highs only in the mid-30s

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Discussion

So it has arrived.

You can see the front moving through and the temperature drop from early this morning to daybreak or so.

You can see the flow of air moving southwards from yesterday afternoon to this morning.

That is some chilly weather in the Plains and the flow of air will continue to “advect” that southwards and southeastwards over the next few days into the region.

Here is the 9AM surface map showing the location of the cold front moving through MO.

So the bottom line for temperatures is below average through the middle of next week.

As we go higher into the atmosphere you can see the colder air (relative to average) continuing to flow southwards through the weekend. Also, notice on the very last image the next chunk of cold air in the northern Plains. That is the colder air coming for Halloween. Another shot of Arctic air too.

In the above animation, reds are warmer than average at 5,000′ and blues/purples are well below average at that level.

So the cold is going to be around for awhile.

For context… the average high for late October is into the lower 60s with the average low in the low 40s.

Now about the rain and perhaps a taste of some wintry weather.

Tomorrow starts out OK… we’re in the colder air in the bottom part of the atmosphere but above that layer of cold air… it’s not as cold. Temperatures, at around 10,000 feet will remain above 32° into Sunday morning. After that though those temperatures up there start to drop off a bit…

It’s important because IF it’s not below 32° aloft, it’s a lot tougher to get snowflakes to actually form in the clouds. Below that though it is below freezing toward the surface (perhaps just above) and so IF it’s liquid precipitation falling… it tends to freeze up as it gets closer to the ground. That is a set up for ice pellets or sleet.

So while a lot of that isn’t expected, there is still that potential at some point on Sunday.

Farther north, into the northern part of Missouri, the air above us will be colder and more supportive of snowflakes to form in the clouds. There, there may be some better light snows, although still tough to accumulate during the daytime with the higher sun angle unless it’s really coming down hard enough.

There are still some timing issues with the developing rain for tomorrow (Saturday). It may wait a few hours in the afternoon, perhaps till after 3PM or so, that would be helpful for some of the college football games in the region tomorrow.

Since they start at 11AM or 1PM for NW MO State in Topeka, it’s possible they can get the games in before the rain returns from the southwest.

Typically though what happens after these colder air shots, especially with the second reinforcing shot of colder air coming towards Tuesday, we start to moderate and my feeling is that heading toward next week into the following week of November, we see a return to near, if not above average temperatures. The EURO model in the extended range does show this trend.

This shows the average temperatures from the 3rd through the 7th of November… leaning slightly warmer. With that said, there could be a warm day and then another cold front comes through dropping temperatures again. So the end result is “average” over the course of a few days.

Regardless and back to this shot of colder air, a hard freeze is likely Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday mornings. Lows should drop into the mid-20s, perhaps colder for some.

So the growing season is effectively coming to an end next week for sure I think. You may have to work harder to save those more tender fall flowers from being nipped by freezing temperatures.

OK so that’s a wrap. Have a great weekend and if there was a weekend that is made for chili cooking this is the weekend. The feature photo is from Laura Mcelroy Messer

Joe