Severe Weather to the West

Slight Risk for Storms

The Storm Prediction center new severe weather outlook now has Kansas City in a slight risk for severe weather.

Here is the assessment from the SPC:
...MISSOURI...
   A QUASI-STATIONARY FRONT IS CURRENTLY LOCATED ACROSS SCNTRL MO AND
   SCATTERED THUNDERSTORMS ARE EXPECTED TO INITIATE ALONG AND NORTH OF
   THE BOUNDARY BY LATE THIS AFTERNOON. THE LATEST OBJECTIVE ANALYSIS
   SHOWS MODERATE TO STRONG INSTABILITY IN PLACE WITH MLCAPE VALUES IN
   THE 2000 TO 3000 J/KG RANGE. THIS COMBINED WITH SUBSTANTIAL
   DIRECTIONAL SHEAR IN THE LOWER TO MID-LEVELS SHOULD SUPPORT A THREAT
   FOR ISOLATED SEVERE STORMS. THE SHEAR AND THERMODYNAMIC ENVIRONMENT
   ON FORECAST SOUNDINGS LATE THIS AFTERNOON WILL BE SUFFICIENT FOR
   SUPERCELLS CAPABLE OF PRODUCING LARGE HAIL AND ISOLATED WIND DAMAGE.

High Risk for West Central Kansas

The Storm Prediction Center has issued a high risk for severe weather for parts of western and central Kansas.

Our weather will remain fairly calm this afternoon, with a slight chance for thunderstorm redevelopment late this afternoon and overnight.

Thunderstorm Developing Tonight

Thunderstorms will be developing late tonight into tomorrow morning as a warm front tries to push through the area. Storms will initially form to our southwest along the front and then they will build and move to the northeast across the city. Here is MICRO Cast HD for 5am tomorrow morning.

You can see that heavy thunderstorms are forecast to be moving through the area around that time. Thunderstorms are most likely in our are between 4-8am tomorrow morning. There may be some heavy rain, but severe weather is not expected at this time. As the rain moves away, it will leave behind rain cooled air that could keep our temperatures in the 60s tomorrow afternoon!

Midweek Rain Chance

An interesting weather pattern will be setting up this week. We are moving into what many meteorologists call an "Omega Block." A quick explanation from the KSHB blog here:

"The symbol ω (lower-case letter) is used to represent what we call an Omega Block. A huge, unseasonably strong upper low is now forming over the western part of the nation.  It is helping throw up a big ridge in the middle part of the country which in turn is helping fuel a deep upper low over the Great Lakes.  Look below at the forecast map for Thursday morning and notice the letter omega":
     

This pattern would normal be very warm and dry for this part of the country, with the huge ridge of high pressure building all the way up into Canada. But this week, a storm system will get caught up underneath the flow, and will cause a warm front to set up to our south. We will have easterly breezes bringing in cooler air north of the front, while south of the front it will be very hot and humid. Map posted below.

This warm air trying to force itself northward into the cool air will likely cause showers and thunderstorms to form Wednesday night into Thursday morning. There could be some heavy rainfall. The GFS gives us between .5 and 1 inch of rain, while the NAM, posted below, gives up almost 2 inches! This will be very interesting to watch develop over the next couple of days, as the models want to keep rain in the forecast through Saturday!

Getting Back Up to Speed- May 1-2 Recap

I have been having some issues getting blogs posted lately. It took two days for the post below to show up. Hopefully now things are back to normal.

Quick recap of the severe weather threat that I blogged about way back at the beginning of May. We ha two rounds of severe weather. The first round was in the form of tornadic supercells that produced rotation over the metro and a couple isolated tornadoes. Later that night, a very strong bow echo moved across the city, producing widespread 60-80mph winds and wind damage. The bow echo also produced two tornadoes in the northland, one and EF-2 and one an EF-3. Here are a couple of radar images from that night.

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Moderate Risk of Severe Storms Today

The Storm Prediction Center has issued a moderate risk for eastern Kansas and extreme western Missouri, including the western portions of the Kansas City area. The main risks today will be damaging winds and large hail, but there is also a risk for tornadoes in any discrete supercells that form out ahead of the cold front. If these storms form, they could be very explosive and severe. It is likely that a tornado watch or severe thunderstorm watch will be issued for our area later today.
Here is today's setup:


Storms will initially fire along the dry line/cold front in central Kansas, and then move our way. The threat for isolated severe storms will begin around or a little after 6pm as storms may try to form out ahead of the dry line. If the storms remain discrete, they will likely be super cell thunderstorms, with a risk for tornadoes and very large hail. Eventually, the storms should evolve into a squall and the threat for tornadoes will go down, but the threat for damaging winds and large hail will remain. This setup is still evolving, and needs to be watched closely.

SPC Severe Risk: