Good chilly Wednesday blog readers —
It was a cold start as many across the area witnessed their first freeze of the season.
Downtown Kansas City, Missouri, out to Lee's Summit and south to Pleasant Hill held onto that urban warmth.
Last night, we had a brisk north wind that blew the warmth off the city toward the south-southeast, keeping just a very select few above freezing.
For most, this was just about on time, but for our Kansas friends, this was an early first freeze.
The Kansas City area usually see's its average first freeze around Oct 28.
This cold snap happened as high pressure centered right over Kansas City last night.
As that high pressure moves away, we will begin to sweep in a warmer flow.
The wind tomorrow will be gusty, but it will also kick off a warm trend; by the weekend, we are expecting mid to upper 70s.
But while this wind will be warming us up, it is not all good.
With how dry we are, this wind will be kicking up some fire weather concerns.
I know there aren't a lot of leaves to burn yet, but under this kind of wind and low humidity, there will be increased fire danger, so be mindful of your Thursday activities.
Once we get through Thursday's wind, all eyes are on the weekend. It is going to be a beautiful weekend in Kansas City!
We don't get to enjoy a sunny and mild weekend all that often as we transition into the cold season, so make sure to soak it up.
While all this sunshine has been nice, we are certainly in need of some rain, and we finally have a storm system to watch.
In case you are counting, it has been 22 days since we've seen rain.
This weekend a low pressure system will be hanging out over the four corners region.
This low is looking to move toward Kansas City by Monday into Tuesday bringing us a chance for rain.
Now the better chance for rain will stay in the southern Rockies, but as that low moves north of Kansas, we may get lucky and get a slice of the leftover pie.
Overall, I think this will trend better as a snow event for the Rockies and a low end rain event for Kansas City.
But there is something interesting to watch — the wave that this low is riding is showing some signs of becoming slightly negatively tilted as it ejects from the Rockies.
Negative tilts in waves allow the surface low to better develop and is an indication thunderstorm activity is more possible.
So I'll be curious by Sunday into Monday if we are seeing any severe weather concerns in western Kansas.
Again, barely tilted, but something to watch for a clash of seasons along the Rockies and into western Kansas.
Models are coming together on the track of this low, but when it comes to timing, there is still a little uncertainty.
It looks like we will see a six hour window for rain, but will it be during the day on Monday or Monday night into early Tuesday, that is TBD.
But hey, at least we are tracking and talking about rain again! And maybe a few thunderstorms nearby!
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