KANSAS CITY, Mo. — So it’s been sort of a lost week of weather around these parts. Clouds, chilly highs, periodic rains, and that’s the way tomorrow is going to go as well.

Actually, today isn’t much better, but at least it won’t rain. However, it should remain pretty gray today. With us starting in the mid-30s this morning, it won’t moderate that much unless we can get some cracks in the clouds, and that isn’t overly promising.

Tomorrow, while the rain won’t be a lot, it will be a problem later in the morning into the afternoon. After that though, we should finally see a few days of sunshine. While highs will remain below average for awhile, the sunshine will be a nice improvement.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Kansas City Forecast

Today: Cloudy with perhaps a few breaks later today. Highs near 40 degrees.

Tonight: Generally cloudy with steady temperatures in the mid-30s. There may be a few more breaks in the clouds.

Tomorrow: Cloudy with light rain developing as the later morning moves along. Highs in the 40-degree range.

Sunday: Improving but still cool with highs well into the 40s.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Discussion

Not a lot of updating is needed to the forecast really. Just sort of one of those weather weeks around these parts. After the warmth from last weekend, it has certainly been cool for highs at least.

Our monthly temperature is still running about 4.5 degrees above average though and there are some milder days coming next week. Wednesday in particular looks warm and windy. We may hold on to that warmth into Thursday before a decently strong cold front comes through the region in time to bring chilly weather for the big parade in KC next Friday.

It may be a day with parade temperatures only in the 30s with wind chills in the 20s and blustery conditions expected.

There’s that parade goers. Tomorrow’s parades are going to be a a bit dicey. You might want to have an umbrella ready as we expect some light rain/drizzle to add to the chill in the air tomorrow. Snake Saturday parade goers take note of that as well.

The total rain tomorrow won’t be much at all, likely for most under 1/4 inch. It will just add to the mud that we’ve got out there with the saturated soils.

So again just enough, but no concerns for flooding rains.

Weather around the U.S.

Out west, it’s a different story: A ton of moisture thanks in part to the atmospheric river, especially for the mountain regions.

Over the last 90 days, it’s been wet and white out there, just depending on where you are in California.

Here’s a weird one for you: This concerns a tropical cyclone named Freddie that’s in the southern hemisphere and has been around for awhile… a long while. Freddie was born on Feb. 6 and it’s still going 33 days later. It may become the longest-lived tropical cyclone in recorded history.

The current record is Typhoon John that lasted 31 days back in 1994.

“Meteorologically, Freddy has been a remarkable storm. The Australian Bureau of Meteorology, which acts as a WMO regional centre, named Freddy on 6 February a few hundred kilometers off the northwest coast of Australia.

From the World Meteorological Organization

Freddy tracked across the entire Indian Ocean from east to west, affecting Mauritius and La Réunion on its long journey en route to Madagascar. This kind of super zonal track is very rare. The most recent recorded cases were Tropical Cyclones Leon-Eline and Hudah, both in 2000, which like 2023, was a la Niña year.

That’s pretty incredible. Once Freddie fades away, they’ll reevaluate the system to verify that it is a new record.

There is a metric that is used to measure the energy that a tropical cyclone accumulates through the course of it’s lifetime called the Accumulated Cyclone Energy or ACE. Freddie has been around so long that it’s generated an ACE “score” equivalent to the TOTAL ACE score of all the average tropical cyclones in a typical Atlantic tropical season. That is truly remarkable.

It has traveled over 6,200 miles. It’s possible that after making a second landfall in Mozambique tonight or tomorrow, it may loop around and get back out into the waters again and keep going.

Remarkable.

Oh and in the never-say-die department for snow… the northeast hasn’t had much, especially the big cities. But they may be queuing up for a nor’easter on Tuesday into Wednesday of next week with 12 inches plus of wind blown snows from Philly up through New England. So it goes.

That’s it for today. Have a great weekend. Have a plan B for tomorrow.

The feature photo is from Austin Hamilton up in Chariton, Iowa.

Joe