Current Conditions at Sanborn Field

Tonight- Clouds increasing. Low: 41-45.

  

 Wednesday- Cloudy. High: 62-66.



Wednesday Night- Cloudy, rain beginning late. Low: 49-52.




Thursday- Light to moderate rain. High: 58-62. 

Friday- Cloudy, clearing during later afternoon. High: 60-64. 

Thanks to IconArchive.com for the icons!

Discussion:

A pleasant afternoon in Mid-Mo continues as a weak cold front passed earlier today and begin to feel the influence of a high pressure system that is centered over Northeast Kansas.  Clouds begin to increase overnight Tuesday night as the high pressure that was over Northeast Kansas moves East over Central Illinois Wednesday morning and a stationary front forms over Southern Missouri and forms into a warm front, makes it way up our way during the day Wednesday and reaches us by Wednesday afternoon.  Our next storm system approaches us from our West, with that rain is set to begin around midnight Thursday.  Rain possibilities continue throughout the day on Thursday and on through early Friday morning.  A rumble of thunder with this system cannot be ruled out. Rainfall accumulations are expected to be 0.5-1in of rain with the event.  Friday a low cloud deck continues throughout the morning ours and begins to break up during the afternoon on Friday. 

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Forecasters: Azzara, Munley, and Brown

Issued: 5;00 p.m., 1 April 2019

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

While we have spent a good amount of time in a fairly strong ridge, a trough is starting to get settled into the eastern half of the CONUS which is including central Missouri and bring with it some active weather.

GFS seems to be the most reliable model to run for this forecast period because the WPC stated that it is running with above average confidence. At 250 mb, the jet is currently stationed over top of mid-Missouri which that, along with 70% relative humidity and a slight amount of circulation at 500mb. This leads some models and forecasters to say that  there could be some spotty showers this afternoon/evening but after looking at Skew-T's it does not appear that there will be enough moisture to support actual precipitation, just some increasing cloud cover as we head towards the evening leading up to our next frontal passage. The jet will head off to our northeast and the circulation will move out of the area and make its way up the east coast.

A cold front will pass through the area overnight tonight, it will not drop our temperatures much, just down to around 40 degrees as our low, and will not drop any rain as it moves into the area, but it will increase our cloud cover heading into Wednesday. Wednesday looks to stay fairly dry due to a high pressure center that will settle in to the area on the backside of a cold front and a stationary front will link on to the southern most part of the cold front, but, after its passage, the stationary front will move north and evolve into warm front that will make its way to mid-Mo.  The warm front will stay right over top of I-70 for the next 12 hours and drop some moderate rainfall starting about 06Z on Thursday once the column is fully saturated. The warm front along with an inverted trough at the surface and weak solinoidal warm air advection will help in the moisture development for this system. The warm front will eventually turn into a stationary front by Thursday afternoon. While being under the influence of this warm front, winds will be out of the south, feeding us warm air. However, to our southwest there is low pressure center that will go under cyclogensis and mature into an open wave cyclone by Thursday. That will stay to our south as it moves to the east but will aid in continuing the feed of moisture to the area and continue the rain into Thursday night until the system finally moves out of the area. Looking at the Skew-t for Thursday, it looks like the column will finally dry up by around 06Z on Friday morning. This system will have a slight potential at its strongest point for a few rumbles of thunder or a flash of lightning since it does have CAPE values of about 350 J/kg and a good amount of lift. However, severe storm possibilities have very low confidence for this particular system since the CAPE values are pretty low and the majority of the circulation stays to the south.

After this system moves off, skies will start to clear up and temperatures will warm up as we head into the weekend.