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Spring may finally turn wet in late May, rain could dampen Memorial Day Weekend plans

Posted at 6:23 PM, Apr 19, 2018
and last updated 2018-04-19 19:55:19-04

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — We just made it through one of the coldest beginnings to spring in our history.  

In fact, the first 18 days of April were the coldest first 18 days of April in KC recorded history. 

Will this continue? 

The colder pattern will continue, but the days are getting longer, and with longer days temperatures will respond and warm up.

The weather pattern is cycling according to the LRC. The LRC was named by the bloggers over 15 years ago, and it was just published in the Journal of Climatology and Weather Forecasting.

It is something I discovered in the 1980s, but it may have been discovered as early as the 1940s by Jerome Namais, a famous long-range forecasting meteorologist. His thinking and the way we see the cycling pattern are quite similar. 

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We use this Cycling Pattern Hypothesis to make these seasonal forecasts and so much more. This year’s cycling pattern has produced the conditions for the colder spring, but we have been lagging behind on rainfall. 

We are forecasting it to begin getting wetter in May and June. The second half of May is likely going to be quite wet. More than five inches of rain falls on average during May, and again during June for an average two-month total of just over 10 inches. 

We are forecasting around 10 inches of rain in the next two months.

We need at least that much to keep our water bills low. And, we are forecasting below average temperatures. This will be a good thing once we get into June as 70s will finally be below average.

Severe thunderstorms erupted around April 13. This part of the pattern will return near the end of May, and this will likely be when severe weather season is at its worst in the Kansas City region. Expect a rather stormy end to the month.