Good Friday morning bloggers,
Please send us your rainfall totals for last night, and the month so far. The PDS watch didn't quite verify yesterday, which is fine with me. For our local area, it did what we thought it was going to do. We believed it would be a strong line of thunderstorms with bow echoes, and this is what ended up happening last night. There were tornado warnings issued by the NWS after midnight for counties in Missouri (Pettis, Johnson, Henry, and Lafayette). The NWS has changed their policy after May 2nd, and a bow echo formed southeast of Kansas City, and they decided to be safe and issue a bow echo tornado warning. It wasn't nearly as strong as May 2nd, but the conditions were favorable.
The LRC continues. We believe the weather pattern sets up in October and November and then cycles. According to my theory it doesn't end until August or September as it transistions into next year's LRC. So, was last nights storm related to the winter weather pattern. I say 100% yes. And, here is the evidence. If you have been reading the blog all winter, then you know that we are in, roughly, a 50 day cycle. Look back 49 days ago and compare the map to early this mornings 500 mb flow:
Look at the vigorous upper low that just passed us, on the below map. It is amazingly similar to the upper low that just passed us on April 18th, 2008, or 49 days ago (the April 18th one was a bit farther south, and it should be because the jet stream had only just started its summer retreat). And, look at the strong energy coming into the west coast which will carve out another western trough. This feature also existed 49 days ago. Even the ridge aloft over the eastern United States is shockingly similar. I am not shocked, but always amazed. Even the closed upper low near the North Pole on last nights map is extremely similar to the upper low just off the map above.
This is not a coincidence, can you see the shocking similarities. The weather pattern continues to weaken, but it is still "the same" pattern, as summer approaches. As summer settles in during the next two to three weeks, the jet stream will continue to weaken and lift farther north. This will eventually shut down severe weather season as we have known it, but it doesn't mean it will dry out. Before this happens we have some possible severe weather set-ups next week.
And, I must give credit to the picture taken by "Chris in KC", a local photographer, earlier in the week. It is one of the more spectacular photos I have ever seen, and the second one is another picture taken, but I don't know who took it:
Today will be a beautiful day. Enjoy it! I have the rest of the day off. Brett Anthony and Jeremy Nelson will keep you updated as we move into the weekend.
Gary