Our overall cold and wet month is almost done with, and it appears that March will go out like a lion in some sense with strong winds in the forecast for the end of the week.
Temperatures through yesterday are running about 3° below average, and today won’t help that cause at all with another day of highs about 10° below average.
The good news is that there is some better warmth coming…70s for more than a few days aside from Saturday, which will be cooler and blustery. The overall pattern starting Thursday is milder, and not many will complain about that at all I don’t think.
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Forecast:
Today: Gradual clearing with sunshine later this morning then sunshine in the afternoon. Highs near 50° (average is 60°)
Tonight: Fair and cool with lows in the 30s
Tomorrow: Mostly sunny and seasonable with highs near 60
Thursday: Windy and warmer with clouds and sunshine. Opening day will have winds gusting to 35 MPH. Highs into the 70s
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Discussion:
There was actually a rain/snow mix earlier this morning for some areas…but with temperatures in the 30s, no accumulations were reported locally but NW MO had a minor coating.
We had the storms but it just hasn’t be meant to be this winter. 9″ is about all we could muster up at KCI and the snow window is almost closed at this point.
Disappointing for sure.
We have gotten moisture though and that is beneficial for farmers etc locally. The soils are moist and saturated and more rain is possible on Friday into next week at times.
Our next storm is affecting California today and tomorrow with some locally heavy rains and more heavy mountain snows
What’s another 1-4 FEET of snow in the mountains…
This stat is a few days old…but my goodness.
That storm will be our next more significant change later in the week. What it will do is help to establish a warmer southerly flow of air into the Plains and that will be welcome to some extent from folks getting a bit tired of this persistent, generally chilly, month that we’ve experienced.
Temperatures tomorrow should be closer to average and then as the winds really increase on Thursday we should see a much more dramatic warm-up sending temperatures into the 70s, although the winds may be cranking away at close to 40+ MPH. Those winds though will be from the south and that will bring the warmth and the higher dew points as the late week moves along.
Dew points will be into the 50s Thursday evening and night and may be around 60° to start the day on Friday. By late Thursday (7PM) the developing surface storm will be in the western Plains.
Do you see the black lines…those are isobars or lines of equal pressure. The more there are in a smaller space the more wind there is…we’ll have a lot of wind.
The south winds in front of the storm will bring up some decent gulf moisture and the system will also have some disturbances ahead of it on Friday morning.
These disturbances will interact with the gulf moisture and my thought is that we’ll see areas of rain develop and move NNEwards in fast flow aloft. These areas of rain may in fact reduce the instability as a cold front/dry line moves towards the region on Friday.
By Friday afternoon the cold front will be west of here and the dry line will be coming through eastern Kansas.
Assuming we have rain around in the morning…there will be a race in terms of instability rebuilding and the cooler and drier air coming into the area in the mid afternoon hours.
Should we build up enough instability there may be some stronger storms, especially on the MO side. The SPC is watching areas from KC east, and I think the area from 65 highway eastwards is more of a prime area to watch.
Stronger winds, some hail and the potential of a few tornadoes can’t be ruled out. One thing for sure the winds above us will be cranking, especially on the MO side of things.
Take a look at the mid level winds, around 10,000 feet in the afternoon on Friday…howling around 60-70 MPH from the State Line eastwards.
This means a couple of things…what storms do form will fly at around 60 MPH and if the storms can tap into the fast moving air above us…stronger winds could be an issue with some of the storms on the MO side.
IF the morning showers/storms have little coverage, then the severe weather risk locally could ramp up a bit more in the afternoon. That morning coverage though is typically a tough thing to overcome to get bigger storms in the afternoon around these parts. It’s typically a tougher thing to do in late March as opposed to late May.
So I’m not jumping up and down yet about the severe weather risk locally. It’s on the table but these late March/April high wind shear systems have more of a tendency to be bigger issues east of the area than locally. Certainly something to watch though…and if we don’t get the morning activity…then we could have a better chance of something in the mid afternoon, especially on the MO side.
Colder air will wrap into the storm Friday evening and night. So Saturday will start blustery and chilly…then we moderate on Sunday into next week.
Here is a look at the EURO ensembles for the next couple of weeks…
After the chill on Saturday then we get several warm days in a row.
There may be some stronger storms early next week as well. Let’s keep an eye out for Tuesday of next week.
Speaking of which…by now you’ve heard about the bad tornadoes in western MS…and elsewhere. These are preliminary results of the EF ratings
The feature photo comes from east of Spickard, MO…nice coating this morning. From Allen Hickman
Joe
