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Battle in the Plains

The fight is between warm and cold air, and Kansas City is right in the middle! Arctic air will lie to our northeast, while unseasonably warm air will be to our southwest. We will get little "tastes" of each airmass, but will never fully tap into them.

This time of year, this pattern (northwest flow) is generally dry (see image below...click to enlarge).

However, in May or June, this could repeat and it would be very stormy... due to the abundance of Gulf Moisture.

A couple of cold fronts will pass through this week... Thursday and again on Friday... but without the moisture, a light shower is all we would expect.

There are some indications that next week, we could see temperatures running ten to twenty degrees below average... and the possiblity remains for one last winter storm! Below is the GFS model surface map for March 17th, just click to enlarge!

The colors you see are precipitation amounts... see the key on the left. Blue means a half to three quarters of an inch liquid. Also notice the dashed lines in blue and red... near KC, our "thickness" is 534 dm. This means the atmosphere is cold enough to support snow!

Stay tuned!

Jamie

Posted by at March 9, 2005 7:56 PM