KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Good morning bloggers,
It is a beautiful spring morning in Kansas City. The Kansas Jayhawks go for the National Championship tonight in New Orleans. There is a severe weather risk between here and there, as you can see on today's severe weather outlook from the Storm Prediction Center:
The strong to severe thunderstorms will likely be tracking north of New Orleans with a tornado risk in the middle of this risk.
The severe weather risk will shift east on Tuesday:
The weather pattern is being influenced by a powerful jet stream developing over the North Pacific Ocean. The jet stream is caused by temperature contrasts, and with winter still battling spring, and winning most of those battles thus far, these jet streams have been strong. This one is really strong with winds forecast to reach 200 miles per hour or greater at 30,000 feet above us.
This powerful jet stream is forming right now and this map above shows the 180-knot winds, which is equivalent to 207 miles per hour. WOW! As we look at the level just below the jet stream level, or the 500 millibar level, which is around 18,000 feet above us, we can see this strong jet. The closer those height lines are together, the stronger the wind speeds are and these lines are very close together near the Pacific Northwest coast:
This energy is looking like it is straight from west to east, but leaning into a trough near the Rocky Mountains. Between now and Thursday, the flow will buckle and a major storm develops, as you can see on Thursday's forecast below:
All of that Jet Stream energy carves out this big storm. This storm deepens into a closed-off upper low with four circles around it. This will slow the system down and bring Kansas City some colder weather on Thursday into Friday. After this moves by, a huge warm-up is in the forecast for Saturday through Monday. Since this system does form north and east of Kansas City, the chance of rain this week is limited to a short window on Tuesday. We will miss the severe weather risks this week, but they are more dangerous over the south.
Kansas City weather timeline:
- Today: Nearly 100% sunshine with increasing clouds later today. Light northeast winds 5-10 miles per hour. High: 61 degrees
- Tonight: Becoming cloudy with a chance of light showers by morning. The chance of rain is only 20%. Low: 44 degrees
- Tuesday: Mostly cloudy with a chance of showers. Light east winds shift to the south at 5-10 miles per hour. High: 69 degrees
- Wednesday: Mostly sunny and windy. West winds 15-30 miles per hour. High: 63 degrees
- Thursday: Mostly cloudy, windy and colder. Northwest winds 15-30 miles per hour. High: 48 degrees
Thank you for spending a few minutes of your day reading the weather blog and sharing this weather experience. Have a great Monday!
Gary
