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Lightening and thunder here just outside of McLouth KS.  We have also picked up 0.42" of rain since yesterday, 0.35" since midnight.  Just drizzle and some light fog and 43 degrees here.

Good Morning Gary, Team, and Bloggers,
Since I cannot submit a video I will briefly share here my thoughts on an approaching winter storm:  If it's ice, I'm concerned for ice damage, and possibly no electricity to keep my home heated.  I enjoy the snow-covered landscape from the inside!

Gratitude and Blessings to all of our many Veterans!
Edna

My rain gauge measured .35" for this storm.  Maybe will have more when I get home from work.

Laura 'n Raytown

Gary:

Good Morning to you sir!!! I did indeed sleep through the thunder last night-first time I can ever remember doing that-must have been tired LOL!! I am not sure how much we recieved here in SW Lawrence as I have yet to set up a weather station in the new abode-but we recieved a decent rain for sure!!

Since I am sleeping outside with 17 students Thursday night, I am still very much watching the timeing of the frontal passage. I think (big Think here!!) that both the 0z GFS and the 6z GFS have the front moving through between 1-3 A.M. Friday morning. I am watching because I just wonder if the GFS is not a bit slow with this passage and that maybe it does get through here before midnight Thursday. It appears that the upperlevel low is fairly far east of us before the front moves through. Just some random talking to myself outload thoughts this morning!! Having 17 students with a few of them being in 7th and 8th grade keeps my eyes on this even more than normal-if that is possible-as I have stated on here a million times I love watching fronts move through and following the wind shift lines!!! Its the little things!! LOL

Have a great day-to be honest, I would love the front to blow through Thursday afternoon-the windier and colder it is, the more items we will get donated but I must also consider my "sleepers outside"!!! As always thanks for reading-I am very much looking forward to following this winter and of course reading your and the teams winter forcast!!! I know I will learn a tremendous amount in the reading of it!!

Take care

Bill in Lawrence

The lightning & thunder show was pretty loud in NW Lawrence.  We picked up 0.47" through 7:00 AM this morning.

Had some intense thunder & lightning in west shawnee.  One strike must have hit something close by, as our power got reset!

Tim in Shawnee

We had hail last night in Grain Valley...enough to cover the deck pretty nicely.

Good morning.....Received 0.45" of liquid in the rain gauge over in East Lawrence.

Ray

Bill, on this Vetern's Day, your dedication to sleeping outside to collect donations should really hit home for all of us. As I stepped outside this morning, I stopped and took a moment to breathe in the chilly, foggy morning air, then rushed to the heat of my car, after reading this, I wondered how horrible it must be not to have that simple comfort we take for granted, being able to stay warm, I for one will be going through all my pack ratted winter items to do my part to help those less fortunate.
With regards to this weather, I just returned from Dallas, where it was beautiful and warm on Thursday and Friday and then a cold front blew in bringing with it, high winds, rain and much cooler temps. Monday when I left, they were experiencing T-storms with tornados and hail. The flight home was he worst I have ever experienced, the flight attendants never left their seats. The pilot said we were cruising at 36,000 ft, so my question is, how high does a plane have to fly to avoid all the weather? Can they get above it? Do tornadic conditions exsist above the tornado as well as below it?
Things to ponder on this wonderful day!

Happy Veterans Day to all!  Our country wouldn't exist today without the veterans!

.44 as of 7AM this morning at 169 & Englewood

Doug

Gary,

What is the stations address? I need for mapquest

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4720 Oak KC, MO 64112

 

Where do you all get the maps that you look at for so far in advance?  These would be interesting to look at.

Thanks, Gary!

Happy Veterans' Day!  It is a shame I have no capacity to create and upload videos.  Will you put video of your winter forecast on the website so I can view it from Tx?  I won't be back in KC until early December at the earliest, looks like.

More rain in KC, and finally some much-needed rain here.  As I've noted previously on the blog, I currently work in Stephenville, Texas and reside in Mineral Wells, Texas.  Stephenville is 42 miles south of Mineral Wells.  Mineral Wells officially received about 2/3 of an inch of rain yesterday.  I don't know what the official rain total was in Stephenville.  As I was driving home from Stephenville to Mineral Wells yesterday evening at about 5:45 I encountered very strong to severe thunderstorms about 15 miles north of Stephenville with strong winds and hail to about the size of nickels or quarters (it was tough to tell in the blinding rain) that forced me to drive about 10 mph for a time.  I feared for my car as there was nowhere to shelter it from the hail, but think it made it through the hail ok.  Radar estimates for rainfall in the area where I encountered the storm were in the range of 3-5 inches and flash flood warnings were issued.  The storms were training over the same area for a few hours.  It's been feast or famine with the rain in this area since I started working here in August.  Hope you all aren't too cold and damp in KC.  Here it's supposed to be partly sunny to sunny and 75 today.  I'm trying to send some of it your way.

Severe thunderstorms can grow to heights of 40,000 to 60,000 feet, so jets typically try fly around the strongest cells because they can't fly over them.  The updrafts in severe thunderstorms are so strong and have so much upward momentum that they can go right through the temperature inversion at the boundary between the troposphere and stratosphere, which creates the typical "anvil" of a garden-variety thunderstorm by stopping the upward momentum of the updraft.  From a distance, one can see the top of the growing cumulonimbus cloud above and surrounded by a "halo" of anvil cloud.  This is called an overshooting top and it's often a good indication for field observers that a thunderstorm is severe.  An overshooting top typically only lasts for a few minutes for any one updraft before its momentum slows due to the warmer air of its surroundings and it is neutralized, but severe storms often create a succession of overshooting tops.

"Did you sleep through the thunderstorms?"

I went to sleep last night with cold medicine that makes you drowsy.  I was woken up in the middle of the night and heard the thunder and my wife was asking for help.  I glanced over and Smokey, our dog, was shaking, panting, and laying literally on top of her.  So, I pulled him off and I fell right back to sleep.  Glad we got the needed precip!

Shout out to all military, active and retired!  Thanks for your service!

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Happy Veteran's Day to you too!  Stormy gets a bit worried about the thunder, but not that bad. Breezy seems unaffected.

Gary

Hopefully this dry slot in this storm today does not keep coming around this winter during snow storms! I remember how that dreaded dry slot kept us from some good snows last year. *sob*

I heard some thunder in the distance around 2 a.m. last night. Some time after that my daughter (who's bedroom faces the other side of the house) was woken up to really heavy rain. I looked this morning and we only got .20" of  rain over night. Someone else mentioned hail in Grain Valley, I am wondering if that is what my daughter heard and it was just hitting her side of the house since we are not too far from Grain Valley.
Audra (between Lee's Summit, Blue Springs and Lake Lotawana)

12Z GFS looks  a little interesting Friday night, or at least to me it does.

http://www.nco.ncep.noaa.gov/pmb/nwprod/analysis/namer/gfs/12/images/gfs_slp_084l.gif
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Matt,

It also looks interesting Friday morning.   There is a lot to monitor as the new data comes out this evening.

Gary

I am the lightest sleeper you will ever meet and I seemed to have slept right through it!  Crazy.  My son snore in the other room, coughing in his sleep or just the cat walking around the house will wake me up, and I sleep through this storm?

Can't wait for the weather this weekend...mostly Saturday, as I go hunting with my parents every year, and this is great weather for opening day!

Gary,

Definitely an exciting time of the year coming up!  Tell me when our forecast is going to look like this one!!  Holy smokes, now that's a forecast I would get excited about!!!

http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=46.853617401905105&lon=-121.761474609375&site=sew&smap=1&marine=0&unit=0&lg=en

Can't hurt to dream!!!  Have a good one......

Matt

25 to 30" sweet!

That is a lot of stinkin snow!!!  I dont know what I would do if we had that.  I guess i would have a vacation! lol

For the forecast in the next 2 days, Mt. Rainier is expecting as much as 95 inches of snow!  KC would be crushed under 8 feet of snow and can't handle 8 inches.

New data is coming out.  

http://www.nco.ncep.noaa.gov/pmb/nwpara/analysis/namer/gfs/18/fpc.shtml

I don't know if I have even seen that much snow in my lifetime.....probably over the years..but holy cow..could you all imagine waking up to 8 feet of snow?  

Here is a question for everyone...What would you do if you woke up in the morning and getting ready for work, you didn't turn on the tv and you were just getting kids ready for school and yourself ready for work.  You go to the door to open it...and to your BIG surprise, there is snow so high you can't even get out of the door!!  What would you do?

Just something fun to think about (or not fun if you don't like snow!)

The NAM is showing the 540mb line coming into Kansas City Friday morning, but there is really no moisture around to generate any snow.  If the NAM is correct, there may be a flurry or two but no accumulation.  The greater amounts of moisture are well south of Kansas City.  The data is still coming out, and plus we will see what the GFS says when it comes out soon.

snow flurries are looking pretty good for friday night into saturday morning for us.  maybe even a dusting up towards northern MO and southeastern NE.

pvt_murphy,

when does the GFS come out?  Its driving me crazy.

GFS comes starts around now, and gets done around 4:20

Thank you.

jacob, the 12z is out.  i believe the 18z comes out around 1700.  however, as far as the gfs goes, i believe the off hour runs (6z and 18z) hold less value imo.  the 00z comes out around 2300 i believe.  the gfs has consistently been hinting at a vort lobe swinging through the area around friday night for a while now.  the only hinderence would be qpf.  however, lift is looking good, and the gfs has had a hard time recognizing the amount of moisture available in these shortwaves during a NWerly flow this season anyway.  there is also a lot of remnant moisture upstream from us-which could make things interesting.  

remember when gary first left for his vacation we had a back door cold front come through that wasnt supposed to produce any precip and we ended up having not only tstorms and heavy rain, but some sleet as well?  this is a similar setup, but, there will be colder air this time around.  i dont think it will turn out to be a snowstorm or anything, but it may just end up being fat flaked flurries as opposed to those tiny flakes that are more of a tease than anything.

ohh, forgot about the time change...its coming out now jacob...matt beat me to it.

I love new data!  

Wonder what changes the 10pm forecast will hold.  I think the weather team is driving the anchor crew nuts with the snow in the forecast.  It is always funny to watch their reaction to the word snow.  Looking ahead, I will have to make sure I tell my niece and nephew to have my sister tune to 41 for the santa tracker next month.  They love that stuff.  Got the new studio for a HD tracking set up now!

The new data doesn't really have much of a chance of snow...sorry.

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But, some chances are showing up around November 20th!

Gary

Last year I got a birthday present of snow.  Maybe that will happen again this year?  My birthday is the 21st of this month. . .   :)

We've received an underwhelming .22" of rain in Emma, MO during this "storm."

Walt Snyder

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Walt,

That isn't a bad total for this storm.  I was worried many spots would only get around 0.10".

Gary

The GFS is driving me crazy..on again - off again...

Kinda like peekaboo.  Now you see it, now you don't..then its back again.

Frustrating.

Scott,
It still looked like it was there to me, just in a much different form. That seems like a good sign to me, that it is consistently forecasting a storm for that time period.

Friday into Saturday has started to look more interesting as well, especially out towards me in St. Louis. Eagerly awaiting the new data here!

David

i said this before, and take what you want from it...but the 18z as well as 6z isnt the most accurate runs of the gfs...if its meant to be, it will show up again.  and even if it doesnt show up on the models, i still think that flurries are a good bet.  there is lift and some moisture to be had, it will be alright!

Scott -

Care to take a stab at yesterday's questions?

i am afraid friday's chance at snow or no snow wont be determined till thursday the models are too inconsistent for me right now. got to love winter weather

Well Happy Veteran's Day, thank you to all of the veterans, with out them I would not be in a free country like this one to participate in a weather blog;)
Well, I'm not the best when it comes to making internet videos... so I will just answer them in the blog.
1. One thing that I like about winter is exciting winter storms.
2. One thing that I don't like is the dry air which messes with my nose.
3.I think that the LRC is a recurring cycle/pattern in the jet stream dictating how Rossby waves, and short waves set up in the jet. It also starts in the fall and ends the next fall. I believe in the LRC after seeing storm systems(short waves, cut-off lows ect. that would exhibit not only a similar path, but an uncanny similar "look" in the "shape" of the energy as their supposed analog storms in earlier rotations of the cycle.
4. When a winter storm is moving in the main emotion that I get is anticipation and excitement, I love watching weather and with winter storms it is so much more fun in most situations getting to see frozen precip. of many varieties, with the best one being snow that will leave a mark even after the storm is over, unlike if it is just a rain storm then once it is over, it is gone.
5. One thing that I would say about the LRC is that I try not to think about it as a "weather" pattern, but as a "jet stream" pattern. This is because for most people, weather is what is going on at the surface on any particular day, and this does NOT always cycle or even seem to repeat, this is because even though the "Jet stream" repeats itself, it is never at the same strength as it was the last time it was in the same part of any cycle, it is always either strengthening or weakening heading toward or away from winter and summer.  Add to that the fact that some patterns can be 50+ days long, the surface weather may not seem to repeat, but in any case the jet stream and the long wave trough/ridge pattern that the Rossby Waves seem to fall in, does seem to repeat in a certain way starting in the fall and lasting until the next fall.  Well that was probably way too long winded, but sometimes I get a good pressure gradient going;)

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Nick,

Thank you for your ideas and participation.   Have a great day!

Gary

oh no Gary! I hope you get the seven day up before the news is over!

Wow, are we gonna have "square clouds" tomorrow? Scary!!:)

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That was scary.  Fortunately the computer rebooted and I did get the 7 day up at the end of the newscast.

Gary

Nice observation, Nick...

Notes..again, I get too late to your question, and an answer would have limited shelf life before the next blog.  As you know, I am normally very quick to take on discussion, and in this case, I would hope you understand I have some other priorities right now and want to give your answer due time.  I will answer it on Thursday during the day.

Will that work?

the new gfs pushes the the 21st storm back toward the 22nd and 23rd of november it still looks interesting and yes it will change its a week and a half away :)

Picked up an even tenth of an inch in Emma MO between 6 pm and midnight.

Gary:

Good cloudy but warmish morning to you sir!! Not bad out this morning at all-a little damp but pretty nice out overall!! I know many are going to think I'm kind of wierd, but I love this weather-after 3-4 months of sun and warm temps. in the summer, a few blocks of cloudy/coolish days are awesome!! Just me, but I love it!!!

I have to admit that I have not looked beyond 18Z Friday on any model run as I am pretty much focused on the passage of the front tomorrow/tomorrow night. Trying to get a bead on what I need to tell the students what to expect tomorrow night!!

It is kind of interesting that the 0Z and 6Z NAM and GFS are slightly different with the passage of the front-the GFS is a bit quicker and would have the front through here around midnight-the NAM is about 3-4 hours later-both however do kind of have the real colder air lag about 3-4 hours behind the frontal passage. I kind of lean with the GFS on this in that this is a fairly strong push of colder air and once it gets moving, it will be hard to stop-there does not seem to be much to stop/slow it from blowing through accept that area of low pressure in Texas. In some ways, this seems very similar to that front that came through 2 weeks ago and gave us our first freeze-looks to be dry overall (again have not looked beyond 18Z Friday LOL) but brings down a pretty significant cold push for this time of year. I hope some of this makes sense!!!

I fully realize it is kind of crazy to be focused on a cold front (but you know how I love to watch them LOL) especially one that looks fairly dry but with our event Thursday night I am just trying to figure out an idea of when the winds will shift to the NW. Of course, again, I love to follow strong cold fronts-even dry ones!!! LOL I have to admit, I am kind of rooting for the GFS solution-the colder it is, the better the event is for the students.

Have a great day-one thing for sure (so it seems) tomorrow looks to be breezy and pretty warm so we will have a great evening outside but from about 12:00-6:00 A.M. will be interesting with the front!! As always, thanks for reading and again, have a great day!!!!!

Bill in Lawrence

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Bill,

We don't think you are wierd.  I loved yesterday with the cloudy and drizzly day.  So, you are not alone.  I am writing about the developing weather pattern right now.  I almost always just miss your comment/blog entry by a few minutes each morning. As the weather gets even more exciting I should get the blog going a bit earlier.

Have a fantastic day!

Gary