KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Happy Solstice blog readers —
Winter is here, but it won't feel like it for a while. We are holding onto some serious warmth with an unsettled pattern holding through Christmas.
This all may have you asking, where is winter?
The warmth
It no secret this December has been warm; so far, 2023 is holding in 5th place for warmest December's in Kansas City history.
We even kicked off this morning with record warmth, making it one of the warmest starts to the winter season ever.
Kicking off the Winter season potentially with record warmth this morning. So far we've only dropped to 51° for our 'high low' as much of the region is ~15° warmer this morning than yesterday. The record high today 63° and we look to stay closer to record than normal today. pic.twitter.com/CQEIANbKWZ
— ☀️ Cassie Wilson (@CassieKSHB) December 21, 2023
This warmth has a clear climate signal tied into it.
The Climate Shift Index (CIS) was developed by Climate Central, "and is a categorical scale, with the categories defined by the ratio of how common (or likely) a temperature is in today's altered climate vs. how common it would be in a climate without human-caused climate change."
Today's minimum temperature in Kansas City has a CSI of two, indicating a dominant climate influence.
But take a look across the country. You'll notice a bigger climate footprint into Minnesota with the CSI indicating the overnight warmth they are feeling would be extremely rare without climate change.
The rain
Our El Niño southern storm track continues to fire storms that are searching for a refuel station through Texas.
Storms this winter will need to tap into the gulf in order to refuel enough to impact Kansas City and the system rolling in tonight doesn't have the best refuel position, but it will still get enough moisture to transport showers to KC tonight.
This means we hold onto our cloud deck for much of today with spits of sprinkles possible. Better rain chances arrives between 10 p.m. tonight and 10 a.m. tomorrow.
Overall, don't expect a lot of rain out of this but wet roads for your Friday morning commute are a part of the equation.
A bigger storm with a better moisture transport looks to arrive by Christmas Eve.
It has a colder system that will drop in from the north and wrap in some snow on the back side of it by Dec. 25-26, but mainly through the Rockies into Wyoming and western Montana/northern Idaho.
Cooling down the center of the country is going to take a little bit of work, so the snow potential around Christmas is really going to need an elevation influence to get going.
I mean take a look at the freezing line on Christmas Eve.
It's still well into Canada with soaking rain looking likely from Dallas, through Kansas City and into Minneapolis, with even some thunderstorms possible through the Plains.
By Christmas Day, the freezing line begins to move east but holds much of it's northern extent and stays north of the Great Lakes.
The day after Christmas is when we could see the freezing line creep closer to Kansas City.
We expect temperatures on Christmas Day to remain above average, but they will fall by Tuesday.
These dropping temperatures coupled by some wrap around moisture could lead to some kind of frozen precip in KC Tuesday overnight into Wednesday.
But there is still a lot to watch with this system post Christmas.
So where is Winter? Well there is a system that has my attention in early January and the colder air does look more likely to settle into the Great Plains then as well.
So an after Christmas pattern change is on my radar and we all know winter will eventually show up and January is showing some promise right now.
In the mean time enjoy 'Sprinter' and Warm-cember.
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