Thursday, February 21, 2019







 
Tonight - Cloudy. Low: 28-32

 

Friday - Cloudy. High: 40-44



 Friday Night - Remains cloudy with likely scattered showers. Low 38-42



  Saturday - Cloudy with rain coming later in the evening. High: 52-56


Sunday - Clouds clearing out throughout the day. High: 42-46

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Discussion:
We have an active weekend ahead of us.  For tonight, we have cloud cover hanging out into Friday but we won't see any precipitation tonight as the main chunk of moisture is staying south of us and our winds are out of the southwest.  Friday will stay cloudy with temperatures in the mid 40s as we have moisture continuing to build in anticipation for even showers. Low pressure moves into our area on Saturday.  The main chance for rain would be Saturday as we expect to see .25" - .5" of total precipitation for this system.  As a cold front passes through Columbia early Sunday morning, we expect our temps to drop slightly as we see conditions really dry out. Skies will clear through the day Sunday leading us into the beginning of next week.

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Forecasters: Myers, Doll and Bongard
Issued: 4:00 p.m., February 21, 2019

Technical Discussion (The nerdy stuff we are discussing in class!)

The weather continues keeping us active heading into the weekend with precipitation on the way but some warmer temperatures before then. For tonight, we compared the NAM and GFS models and saw that NAM had quite a bit more moisture advection in southern MO as well as scattered showers across central Missouri. We're leaning towards the GFS model as we don't see a chance for precipiation tonight with winds staying southwesterly and most of the moisture staying near the Springfield, MO area. Currently we sit in the path of an incoming meridional trough that will bring in potential wet weather Friday and Saturday. The trough doesn't move much overnight however with no decent steering force to carry it into Missouri we don't believe it will impact the area before tomorrow night. The GFS sounding keeps the mid atmospheric levels moist throughout the night keeping clouds overhead through the night.

Friday, we see the incoming trough that turns into a more zonal flow as the day continues on bringing vorticity along with it that appears stronger on the NAM model compared to the GFS. Both models have plenty of moisture through the day keeping us cloudy. With winds continuing to come from the southwest, we will see warmer temps Friday as well as ongoing cloud cover into Friday night. The NAM model shows a small chance for rain in the late afternoon with stronger moisture advection coming from the trough while GFS gives us a good chance for precipitation later on into the night. We are leaning more with the GFS model delaying the likely chance of precipitation till later Friday night. The trough will be in a zonal flow by the time it reaches us keeping the precipitation window short tomorrow night while most of the moisture will be remaining to the south of us in the upper jet.

Saturday shows much more promise for precipitation with a low pressure system coming into central Missouri bringing rain throughout the day and Saturday night. GFS shows a chance for a break in the precipitation with stronger winds at the 850 mb bringing in more dry air from our southwest while NAM has the low pressure system coming through earlier as well as further south keeping us moist throughout the period. Additionally, with the system being slightly further to the south, NAM has Columbia in the rain shield through the late evening but as that cold front passes, it will finish the precipitation period by changing into snow Sunday morning. GFS has us consistently keeping to rain throughout the period bringing in totals of .25"-.5" throughout the entirety of the weekend.

With the passing of the low pressure system and rain, Sunday looks a bit more relaxed with winds remaining westerly at the 250mb throughout the day and a zonal flow across the CONUS. Winds near the surface at 925mb shift to northwesterly Sunday morning and stay consistently there throughout the day bringing colder temps than experienced Saturday. GFS shows the atmosphere relatively dry later on in the morning throughout the day bringing in some new fresh sunlight throughout the day, making the day not to bad for a recent frontal passage. 

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