Good Monday morning bloggers,
This hail picture was taken by Kent Rathjen, in Leavenworth. Large hail was produced by a few of the thunderstorms on Sunday. What a severe weather season we just had:
The official start of summer is 6:59 PM on Friday, June 20th. But, it won't feel too summer-like this week. We haven't hit 90 degrees yet this year at KCI or downtown, KC. And, we won't do it this week.
June 1-16th rainfall totals:
- Johnson County Executive airport, KS (151st street): 7.87"
- Overland Park, KS (143rd & Nall): 7.73"
- Olathe, KS (151st & Mur-len): 7.24"
- Lee's Summit, MO: 5.73"
- Downtown airport, MO: 5.14"
- St. Joseph airport, MO: 4.17"
- KCI airport, MO: 3.47"
The wet weather pattern is likely going to continue into the first two weeks of summer, at least. The flooding that has been slowly expanding may continue to worsen in the next three weeks if the rain keeps falling. This week's weather pattern will be dominated by northwest flow aloft. Look below at the forecast for late Wednesday at 18,000 feet up, or the 500 mb level:
There is a trough in the east, bringing some much needed relief from a heat wave they had last week. An upper high is forming over northwest Mexico. Our flow over the top of the upper high and on the back side of the eastern trough is being forced to come in from the northwest. This would be a dry weather pattern almost any other time of the year, but not in June, July, and August. The cold fronts aren't strong enough to wipe out the low level Gulf of Mexico air. So, the disturbances that would normally just have high clouds in them, are now capable of producing significant organized complexes of thunderstorms that we call an MCS (Mesoscale Convective System). One of them formed this morning right over the south part of the metro area and then matured into an MCS over southeastern Kansas and southwestern Missouri. And, there is another one moving across the Nebraska/Kansas border this morning and heading right towards us. If this holds together it could rain this afternoon. It will be fun to track this morning.
High pressure will build in tonight and Tuesday providing us with some nice weather, but as the high shifts eastward, the Gulf of Mexico air will return. With us in northwest flow aloft and a moisture return below, this will lead to more MCS activity later Wednesday through Friday. Look at the forecast rainfall from last nights GFS model for Thursday and Friday. The GFS is modeling a strong, slow moving MCS and trageting our area as you can see below:
A few of the bloggers made a forecast for 4th of July week. Did anyone save them? I could go back and look at the blog entries, but if anyone saved them please send them to my email at work, Lezak@nbcactionnews.com. Thanks!
Have a great day. We will be working on the best weather presentations on the air today and tonight. So, watch NBC Action News for all of the latest trends and for our HD Powercast.
Gary