KANSAS CITY, Mo. — They’re still counting up and looking at information regarding the tornado outbreak late last week, but here we go again.
Another sort of similar storm will impact areas from the Midwest to the Ohio Valley region over the coming couple of days. For the KC area, the impacts may be the same (negligible except for all the wind) to something a bit more significant (a line of severe storms).
While the two storms are similar, the results may be a bit different, which typically is the case with these powerful storms. This will be another powerful storm with strong winds, a dramatic warmup tomorrow, and potentially, a line of stronger storms in the late evening for KC.
This should do it though as a 10-plus day lull in severe weather threats is coming towards us after this storm.
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Kansas City Forecast:
Today: Cloudy skies. There may be a few showers out there, but the chances aren’t so great and perhaps better on the north side. Temperatures today will range from the low to mid-60s on the northside to the 70-degree range on the south side as a warm front is just south of the metro.
Tonight: Party cloudy and cool. Lows in the upper 40s to near-50 degrees.
Tomorrow: Partly cloudy, turning windy and much warmer. Highs potentially into the low to mid-80s. Winds gusting from the south-southwest at 30-45 mph.
Wednesday: Partly cloudy and chilly with highs in the lower 50s. Blustery as well.
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Discussion:
So far there have been almost 70 confirmed tornadoes from the storm late last week. While the reports are near 120 from last Friday, there are multiple reports of the same tornado at times, so those will get filtered out to some extent and that number will be coming down.
Over the weekend, New Jersey and Delaware had tornadoes.
Overall however, with taking into account the hail and strong wind reports (not including the strong winds that weren’t connected to storms, like what we had locally) this outbreak on Friday, was the most reports in a day since Aug. 10, 2020.
Quite the day for sure.
That storm and this one coming are sort of the same, but yet different. How that plays out is going to be a factor in whether we’re dealing with storms (especially at night) or if the storms miss us again (on the table).
The Storm Prediction Center is sort of focused on the worst towards areas where the storms were most impactful last Friday.
Here is a closer up view:
Notice for most of the metro, we’re in a level 2 scenario on a scale from 1-5, with level 3 towards the east of KC and level 4 towards northeast Missouri into eastern Iowa and northwest Illinois. Look familiar?
The reason for the similarities is roughly the same positioning of the storm tomorrow. The storm is now moving through the northwestern U.S., then will cut up though the eastern Dakotas towards northern Minnesota later Wednesday.
This is a different track compared to the storm from last Friday that was moving through Nebraska and Iowa at least aloft.
At the surface however, the surface storm will organize across northeast Colorado tomorrow and then move out into the Plains. This is sort of similar to what happened late last week. This time, a raging blizzard will be ongoing across the upper Midwest, while to the south temperatures should surge well into the 80s with gusting winds again bring up gulf moisture.
Severe weather chances
So what does this do for KC? Well, here we go again with borderline hot-for-early-April weather tomorrow. Dew points will increase towards daybreak as gulf moisture surges northwards with strong winds gusting to near-50 mph possible tomorrow.
One thing that may happen again (and this directly will affect our storm chances later in the day or night really) is whether the dry southwest winds and the hotter temperatures work in tandem to quickly lower the dew points as the atmosphere “mixes” and turns over. Should this happen, and should the dry line lurch east farther to the Missouri side, the metro may not see a drop of rain from this storm, as any storms would potentially develop towards the southeast of Kansas City.
This is one potential outcome. I’m not convinced though.
My general thought today is that instead of this happening, the moisture/dryline will be here and still west of here later tomorrow evening. This serves as the focus for a developing line of strong-to-severe storms tomorrow night, after 8 p.m. in northeast Kansas and northwest Missouri. Those storms would then roll towards the metro before 2 a.m. Wednesday.
So the window would be 8 p.m. to 2 a.m. Wednesday. There may be some appetizer storms in the mid-evening with the main line after.
I think the hi-res NAM is onto something with this idea starting at 7 p.m. tomorrow:
Those storms would mainly be wind/hail makers. But at that hour of the night and with 45-55 mph winds jut above the surface, I’ll also watch for the small little eddies that can develop along the leading edge of the line of storms that can turn into fast-moving tornadoes.
So yes, the potential of later-evening tornadoes is certainly on the table.
The same model is showing some pretty stout indices for rotating storms. With the winds in the atmosphere turning from the south to the south-south west as you go up, it’s something to pay attention too at least.
It’s been on my mind for the last two days or so as the data came in over the weekend. This may also be an all-or-nothing thing for the metro and should easily get figured out.
Simply, if the dew points are still in the 60s tomorrow night, if it still feels sort of muggy to you tomorrow evening, that setup would be there for us.
If the dew points have already crashed, similar to last Friday, then there would be no severe weather risk locally, but perhaps more towards the southeast of the metro. This is the playout from the morning HRRR model.
My thought right now is the 3K model may be depicting what I can visualize a bit better with this type of setup.
The feature shot is from Ben down towards Lake Lotawana, Missouri, this morning. Pretty as always.
Joe
