Good morning bloggers, It's Friday!!!!
We had a few strong "super cell" thunderstorms form over Leavenworth, Wyandotte, Platte, & Clay counties yesterday afternoon. They grew in strength between 5 and 6 PM and then fell apart by 7 PM. Golf ball sized hail fell in a couple isolated locations and up to 3" of rain fell in less than two hours. Rainfall amounts around those big thunderstorms were less
KCI Airport had 1.05" of rain putting our official total up to 5.14". As wet as it seems to have been, this number is .09" short of the average May total of 5.23". Well, we have one more good chance of rain on Memorial Day that should push us up to above average rainfall. It has rained a lot of days, but just not a lot of rain for this time of year. It has rained 16 out of the 28 days this month.
Several bands of showers and thunderstorms moved through Thursday morning and look at this picture of a shelf cloud that roared through early yesterday:
High pressure is now building over the Great Lakes, and much cooler air has moved in. The cloud cover is expected to be extensive until later tonight, and then we should see some sunshine over the weekend before that rain arrives Monday.
So, we didn't have a Tornado Watch once again. There were watches issued over parts of Kansas and Oklahoma, but the KC metro area is now up to two full years without one. This is a good record to break and continue extending!
What is a Tornado Watch? When a Tornado Watch is issued, then that means conditions are favorable for severe thunderstorms to form. The ingredients are there for potential big thunderstorms, and then if they form, and produce a possible tornado that is indicated by radar or spotted in the field the National Weather Service will issue a warning.
In this picture below we use the taco analogy. On the left, conditions are coming together for tacos to form. The ingredients are all there, as shown below. The chef at Mission Taco Joint plated these ingredients for chicken tacos. On the right, the tacos have formed and a Taco Warning is issued. The tacos only lasted a few minutes and then they were gone!
There are no more risks of severe weather in our area for a while. Have a great holiday weekend. Expect a high today of only the upper 50s with a brisk north wind bringing in the cooler air. Rain will arrive Monday!
Thank you for spending a few minutes of your day reading the Gabbing with Gary blog. Have a great Friday Night In The Big Town.
Gary
