Kansas City weather: Severe storms possible over weekend

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KANSAS CITY, Mo. — It was the coldest morning of the season today as lows dropped to 36°. As I mentioned yesterday, there were patches of frost out there again. That type of weather will stop for a while as milder air eventually returns northwards.

Temperatures this month are running almost 5° above average and there are more mild days coming. Sunday and next Tuesday look pretty mild overall. There are no prolonged shots of chilly weather expected into early November, so just some transient in and out cooler and seasonable air masses.

Also it appears there is no 32° mornings coming for awhile either, at least officially up at KCI. So a delayed freeze is likely into November at this point.

The weekend has rain and storm chances and potentially some severe weather risks.

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Forecast:

Today: Sunny and seasonable. Highs in the mid 60s. Light winds.

Tonight: Increasing clouds and not as chilly with lows in the 40s.

Tomorrow: Mostly cloudy skies and breezy. East winds 10-20 mph and there may be some drizzle around as well in patches. Highs in the low 60s.

Sunday: Occasional showers/storms but not all day. There highest risk of storms is overnight Saturday then again towards the middle of the day as a cold front works into the area. The highest risk of severe weather may be more on the Missouri side. Something to watch though for the Metro. Highs in the 70s with muggier air.

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Discussion:

Crisp for sure out there, but this should do it for the real chill into early November I think. Although there will be another patchy frost or two out there over the coming couple of weeks. Still no killing freeze showing up for a while.

Our weather over the weekend will be changeable. Tomorrow is a classic warm front setup to the south of the area. We should remain rain free tonight but there will be rain down towards the south of the metro I think. The HRRR model shows this:

These showers/storms down south will tend to firm up the warm front near the Interstate 44 corridor (or farther south) into tomorrow.

This is problematic for us because north of these warm fronts the atmosphere saturates and we typically end up with lower clouds and patches of mist or drizzle. By later tomorrow afternoon, there are sort of two warm fronts, one south of the Metro and another down towards Oklahoma and northern Arkansas. Note the positioning.

That’s a brisk east wind over the Kansas City area and with clouds and patches of drizzle, that could end up being a cooler day than it appears, certainly with the breeze going.

Here is how that affects temperatures:

Notice we’re in the 60° range with mid-60s south and mid-80s into northeast Oklahoma by 4 p.m. tomorrow.

Dew points are still pretty dry locally, so that will slow the development of drizzle a bit.

As we head into Saturday night though, winds above the warm front will be blowing over it and up the State Line. That generates more lift and eventually some thunderstorms. Some of those storms may be stronger with perhaps some small hail with them as they race towards the north-northeast overnight.

Then on Sunday, the warm front will be north of the metro allowing the more humid air to flood up into the area. This will be aided by stronger south winds as well Sunday.

The speed of the surface storm on Sunday though is the key to the rain chances locally. Some data suggests that if it moves fast enough through the Plains, we won’t have enough time to get unstable locally before the cold front comes through in the early afternoon. If this happens, the highest risk of stronger storms will be more towards the southeast of the metro area. This is very possible. If this comes about, then the rain chances would be dropping in the afternoon since the moisture will be swept away by about 3 p.m or so.

That’s not to say we won’t have storms locally. They just may happen a bit faster in the late morning or early afternoon. They would be fast movers as well, moving towards the east-northeast at close to 50 mph or so. So over the weekend we’ll be monitoring the speed of the front.

If the front slows down by a few hours, then the stronger storms would develop with better instability in the mid-afternoon hours locally and then we would have the risk of severe weather into the metro.

So Saturday night there is a risk of severe weather (hail) with the storms:

Then on Sunday, areas off towards the east and southeast of Kansas City are most favored depending on the timing of the front moving through.

We’ll need to pay attention to that Missouri activity because a tornado or two can’t be ruled out with this since the winds aloft will support rotating cells (fast movers too).

For the races out at Kansas Speedway, assuming we could dodge the drizzle situation for tomorrow, it may be OK (that drizzle though could be problematic at times in the afternoon). Then on Sunday, they should get the race in, although they may need to fight the rain risk a bit more. They have lights out there so they should get it in by the end of the day/early evening.

Also with the storm going north of the Kansas City metro, a pretty formidable dry slot should move through at some point, shutting down the rain for awhile on Sunday afternoon it appears.

Monday and Tuesday should be OK with another system later Tuesday night or Wednesday it appears.

Oh yesterday I posted this with regard to the NOAA Winter Forecast at least for December through February. Remember they do their forecasts based on probabilities. Equal chances DON’T mean near average, it means a 50/50 chance of either above- or below-average conditions. I’m not a fan of these types of forecasts really but that’s me.