Good Thursday morning bloggers,
Eight days until we debut the NBC Action Weather Center and our News Set! We will debut it on opening night of the Olympics on NBC next Friday.
A DENSE FOG ADVISORY is in effect until 9 AM. Visibilities are down to near zero in spots this morning. There is no pressure gradient, and thus barely a breeze this morning. After all of the rain and high humidity, conditions became favorable for fog formation, and it is widespread this morning. It is rather rare for this type of set-up on July 31st. Fog is just a stratus cloud on the ground. So, we have widespread stratus this morning and it will take a while before we see any sunshine. Spiderwebs are saturated this morning with a special effect caused by the 100% humidity. Here is a picture I took this morning showing the thick spiderweb. The spiders were missing from their webs, as they must have thought something strange was going on:
The weather pattern that set up last fall continues in a weakened state. The LRC is about to go through a transition as we start to experience a transition into next years weather pattern. Last year, I believe the winter weather pattern continued through August before the gradual change into this years LRC that set up last October. I am expecting the same thing to happen this year. So, we are likely just three to six weeks away from seeing a major change in the weather pattern. In the mean time, the pattern continues to cycle and as a result I expect the big change, forecast by most mid range models, to cool it off within a week. It will heat up before this next shift in the pattern. The part of the pattern we are about to go into next week is very similar to the pattern that happened in mid-June. We continue to have around a 50 to 54 day cycle. I will try to show the comparison tomorrow, or next week, but it's quite amazing. How did we do on our summer forecast? Here is the link: http://www.nbcactionnews.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=539141AB-4EE4-48F0-AAF3-662DDF9590C5&gsa=true The video is also on our website, but you have to go to videos, do a search for summer forecast and it comes up. I will try to find a faster way to go to it later, if you are interested.
We will be tracking a very weak cold front this morning moving across the northern plains. By Friday evening, the weak cold front is forecast to be near Kansas City, as you can see below:
This front may drift through us and isolated thunderstorms are possible near the front Friday, and then north of the front on Saturday morning. By Saturday afternoon the front will either wash out, or lift north and fall apart in response to very little support to keep it alive. Look below at the 500 mb forecast for Saturday night. An anticyclone (the opposite of a storm system or cyclone) is forecast to be right over Kansas. With this years LRC anticyclones have had a very difficult time growing and creating heat in our part of the nation. This is because of the "long term" longwave trough that set up last October and continues today. It is located from eastern Missouri northward into southern Canada. So, everytime an upper ridge tries to form into this longwave trough, it just falls apart and shifts to the southeast or west. This is going to happen again in response to this weather pattern.
The developing ridge, or anticyclone aloft, will help create our first heatwave of the summer. This will be a moderate heatwave and only last a few days. The weather pattern is forecast to shift back into a Great Lakes trough, and when this forms next week a stronger cold front should make it through us bringing a chance of thunderstorms and relief from the heat. The map below is the 500 mb forecast valid next Tuesday night:
Have a fantastic day! This has been a wild weather week for the end of July. We will go over this past month in the blog tomorrow. Be sure to watch NBC Action News at 11 AM, 5, 6, and 10 PM today for the latest developments on this shifting weather pattern.
Gary