Good Monday bloggers,
Before we talk about the current cold pattern, let's look at the severe weather outbreak yesterday in the southeast USA. There were tornado reports from south Texas to northern Georgia. There were some rather large tornadoes in Mississippi and Alabama. The official assessment on how strong the tornadoes were will be done later today. There have been 6 deaths reported, what a mess. We saw some quarter sized hail over the weekend which is about 1" in diameter. This is the minimum size for hail to be severe. Rainfall over the weekend ranged from under .25" to 1.50" depending on where the thunderstorms tracked. A small band of 1"-3" of rain occurred northwest of Kansas City Saturday night.
OK, now to this cold April weather pattern. We saw lows in the mid to upper 20s with 30-32 to the south. This was the 6th day with a freeze this month, and more to come. The entire month of March saw 5 freezes.
When you want to find out what the weather is going to be up to you have to look at the upper level flow. This is around 18,000 feet. The flow is tracking from the North Pole south into the middle of the USA. This is delivering the unseasonably cold air masses south. This week, in the flow, there will be a series of small systems to track. There is a system for Thursday that might be a bit bigger and more organized. This weekend we will see the flow come more from the Pacific Ocean, allowing for a warm up. But, a new colder pattern is likely April 20-25. Let's go through this wacky weather.
MONDAY: It will be sunny today with a northwest wind 10-25 mph. This is half of what it was Sunday afternoon and last night. KCI reported a peak gust to 50 mph and St. Joseph had a 54 mph peak wind all from the north-northwest. Highs today will be in the mid 40s, 20 degrees below average.
TONIGHT-EARLY TUESDAY: One of the smaller systems will bring an area of snow to western Kansas, south to western Oklahoma. 1" to 4" of snow is possible! We will be partly to mostly cloudy. If the clouds are thicker then we will see lows 30-35. If the clouds are thinner, like this data shows, we will drop to the low and mid 20s. Northern Missouri has the best chance to be clear.
TUESDAY: Another small system moves by and this could generate scattered showers during the afternoon and evening. Some of the showers could be briefly heavy and contain graupel. Graupel is a snowflake-ice pellet hybrid. Highs tomorrow will be 45-50.
WEDNESDAY: Yet, another small system may bring a band of snow to northern Missouri! If it is all snow, the ground could get dusted white up there. Lows will be mostly 28-34.
THURSDAY: This system has our attention. It is looking a little bigger and more organized than its predecessors. It looks like it will produce an area of heavy rain and some snow. A few degrees colder and there will be more blue on this map instead of green. Our last measurable snow was February 12th. Right now it looks like temperatures will be 35-45 which is too warm for all snow. Again, a few degrees colder and this could get interesting.
FRIDAY-SATURDAY: OK, when will it warm up? The Thursday storm exits Friday. So, Friday will see more sun but still be cool with lows 25-30 and highs 50-55. The answer is the weekend. Right now it looks like a nice weekend with sunshine and south winds taking us to the 60s, perhaps low 70s.
Have a great week and stay warm and healthy.
