KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Good morning bloggers,
Spring and winter continue to do battle and spring is beginning to win some of these battles. This week will feature the main event with spring and winter battling it out again on Wednesday. Spring will throw the first punch the next two days with a windy warm-up, especially Tuesday. Winter will get a chance in round two as a cold front moves through Wednesday.
This first map shows a developing and strengthening surface-low pressure area near the Kansas-Nebraska border tomorrow afternoon. Kansas City will have some pretty strong south winds and a warm-up into the middle or upper 70s. Snow will be forming over the Dakotas and we will be waiting to see if any thunderstorms form near the advancing trough, or what is becoming a dry line (brown dashed line extending south from the low).
By Wednesday morning, the thunderstorms finally get their act together:
The energy of this storm is reorganizing Tuesday evening, and this may limit development near the convergence boundaries (cold front, warm front and dry line). By early Wednesday morning, that organization is complete and thunderstorms will likely explode overnight from northeast Texas into central Missouri. There may be a few severe thunderstorms east of Kansas City, but given the time of the day and this set-up, the probabilities are fairly low for severe weather.
Severe weather risks:
The Storm Prediction Center has placed a level two out of five risk of severe weather in our area for Tuesday evening into Wednesday morning. The risk of tornadoes has been placed south of most of our area, as you can see below.
From the SPC: "By Tuesday afternoon, the expectation is for the surface low to be over the central NE/KS border vicinity. A dry line will extend from this low south-soutwestward through central KS into western OK and NW TX, and a cold front will extend southwestward through western KS. Afternoon convective initiation along the dry line remains uncertain, owing to the strong capping and relatively modest low-level moisture (due to both somewhat limited moisture advection abd diurnal mixing). Even if afternoon initiation is realized, dry-air entrainment would likely lead to strong outflow and short updraft duration (which means the thunderstorms would weaken fast). Increasing potential for convective initiation is forecast for later Tuesday evening as large-scale forcing for acsent increases and low-level moisture continues to advect northward. Initial convective initiation appears most likely across central/eastern KS, with an initially cellular mode quickly evolving into a more linear/outflow dominant structure. Hail and damaging wind gusts are expected to be the main risks"
Here is the tornado risk:
The risk then increases Wednesday, as you can see below:
We will be looking for any changes in the timing and strength of this storm system as the new data rolls in. For now, let's enjoy this nice spring day!
Thank you for sharing this weather experience and spending a few minutes of your day reading the weather blog. Have a great start to the week
Gary
