Good Wednesday bloggers,
Well, if it is not going to rain it might as well be nice. We had a low of 57 this morning and today will be in the low to mid 80s with a light wind and low humidity. We also need rain and in order for that to happen we need more moisture in the air, also known as higher humidity. The amount of water vapor in the air will increase Thursday and then a pattern sets up for the weekend that opens the door for widespread rain. Also, below the forecast, we will talk about Saharan Dust. Meteorologist Lindsey Anderson posted a great explanation about it on her Facebook page.
Let's go through this forecast and try to find some rain. You can see, officially, 4 of the 6 months in 2020 have been below average rainfall. May was odd because most KC locations saw 1"-4" of rain on the 28th, while KCI (KC official reporting station) received 0.27". So, May is a bit misleading. That being said, we have all dried out.
TONIGHT-THURSDAY MORNING: A warm front will approach and this will put us in a zone of clouds and scattered showers/T-Storms. It will not be that impressive which means some locations will see zero, others a few drops and others .25" to .50". This is nice, but not nearly enough. Lows will be in the 60s.
THURSDAY AFTERNOON: The warm front will surge north and wash out. We will become partly cloudy, breezy, very warm and humid with highs 85-90. The wind will be south at 10-25 mph. An isolated thunderstorm is possible.
FRIDAY: It will be a mostly dry, windy and hot day with highs near 90. The wind will be south at 15-25 mph. A dissipating area of rain and thunderstorms is possible during the morning, we are used to that.
FRIDAY EVENING-SATURDAY: OK, here we go. A series of disturbances will track east out of the Rockies along I-70 as a cold front sags south and stalls. You can see on this data that a nice area of thunderstorms is moving in around 7 PM. There is another area of rain and thunderstorms in eastern Colorado associated with the next disturbance. These disturbances and front will set up a zone of heavy widespread rain. Around the zone it will rain too, but much less. The severe threats are low but not zero. Damaging winds are often the main issue with these June set ups.
RAINFALL FORECAST THROUGH SATURDAY: This data has the zone of very heavy rain southwest and south of KC where 2" to 5" of rain is possible. We are out of the zone where .25" to 1" is possible. We are gaining confidence that a zone of very heavy rain will set up across eastern Kansas and western Missouri. We are not confident on where it will set up. This data has it south of I-70. It could shift north or south by 100 miles. We don't want 5" of rain all at once, but at this point anything will be good.
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Now to a topic that is opposite of rain, dust from the Sahara Desert in Africa.
This is a satellite image of the Atlantic Basin at 1130 AM Wednesday. You can see the dust moving west through the Caribbean Sea into the Gulf of Mexico. This dust was generated by strong winds in the Sahara Desert and now a big area of dust is being pushed west by the Trade winds near the Equator.
Here is something I have never shown. It is a Saharan Dust forecast map. It looks like an area of thicker dust will get pulled north into our region this weekend. There are 3 main things the dust does.
1. It can sometimes settle to lower altitudes and cause bad air quality. There is a chance it could be brought to the ground in rain drops. And as discussed above we may have some.
2. It can create beautiful sunsets as it gives a very hazy appearance to the sky.
3. It often suppresses tropical system development. Either it prevents them from forming or prevents them from strengthening.
Have a great rest of your week and hopefully we will see some rain. Stay healthy.
