Good morning bloggers,
There is a good chance that this week will end with 2022 beginning, well, there is a 100% chance of that happening. New Year's Day is Saturday, and on that day an Arctic Blast may very well be, well, blasting in. Let's discuss in today's blog.
We will begin with a discussion of this dry spell that just goes on and on. Today is day 43 of this dry spell. It rained 0.09" on November 14th, and it was wet before then in October and early November, and then the faucet was turned off:
So, here we are again with a storm approaching us tonight. I am concentrating on the New Year's storm for many reasons, the most of which is that it looks much more impacting. It may rain early Tuesday, but we are on the edge of this fast moving storm system. The chance of rain tonight is from around 3 AM to 8 AM tomorrow. It may whiff on parts of our area leaving us dry again.
Now, by the end of the week this set up develops:
An Arctic Blast, the first true Arctic front of the season will be on our doorstep by the time we ring in the New Year. A storm system will be developing on this Arctic front, shown with the low pressure center (the red L). There is a huge factor that will likely be the difference between Kansas City finally having its first snow, or just having a dry Arctic Blast?
Look at the feature I point to in these next two graphics:
There is an impacting wave of energy in the form of a storm system that is going to form in the next couple of days and drop off the California coast. The American model is picking up this wave, while the European model is keeping the wave a bit farther south and west.
- If the wave gets kicked out ahead of the storm, then the snow will track much farther north and west and miss KC
- If the wave stays near the base of the storm, then KC has a much better chance of our first inch of snow Saturday
- If the wave, and the main storm phase together and track a bit farther south, then a major snowstorm is possible near KC
Here is the American Model showing the version of the lead wave being farther north and taking the snow north and west of KC.
There is a lot to analyze, and we will see how the models trend today. I don't have a feel on this at the moment. The LRC strongly suggests the farther south solution, but the 43-day dry spell has me a bit "freaked out" over anything that looks like rain or snow.
Early Tuesday Morning:
This forecast map is from the HRRR model. It shows 99% of the rain along and southeast of I-35. Kansas City will be on the edge of this Tuesday storm. The surface low is in Nebraska, so after the rain moves by, it will likely warm up into the middle 60s again, continuing one of the warmest December's in our recorded history. Today's high was 64 degrees at midnight last night. Yesterday's high was 65 degrees at 11 PM last night. We were within one degree of the record high of 66 yesterday at 11 PM. That is incredible.
I will be going in-depth with KC's most accurate forecast tonight on KSHB-41.
Thank you for sharing in this weather experience and spending a few minutes of your day reading the weather blog. Have a great Monday!
Gary
