textproduct: Kansas City/Pleasant Hill

KEY MESSAGES

- Active weather pattern this week with multiple chances for strong to severe thunderstorms.

- Best chances for severe storms appears to be Tuesday evening into Tuesday night, Wednesday afternoon, and Friday afternoon into Friday night.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 150 PM CDT Sun Apr 12 2026

A shortwave trough embedded within the larger scale southwesterly mid/upper level flow is currently traversing across eastern KS into Oklahoma, and has helped trigger widespread rain showers across the CWA this morning and early afternoon. These should continue to slowly push off to the east northeast with the shortwave this afternoon. Rainfall totals should generally remain under an inch for most locations, although a few isolated areas could reach or even slightly exceed 1". With widespread rain and cloud cover, have adjusted today's MaxT down a couple degrees across the board. Dry, mild, and breezy conditions are likely for tonight into early Monday morning.

By tomorrow afternoon, 35+ knot WSW H5 flow should overspread our CWA downstream of the parent mid/upper trough across the SW CONUS. With high temps reaching the lower to mid 80s and dew points in the mid 60s, SB CAPE should exceed 2000 J/kg by mid afternoon. However, despite the combination of instability and decent deep layer wind shear, an EML providing strong capping and a lack of forcing for ascent will very likely preclude any chances for thunderstorms. A tightening pressure gradient tomorrow afternoon should yield sustained SSW winds on the order of 15 to 20 mph with gusts up to 30 to even 35 mph. A 50 knot LLJ tomorrow night into early Tuesday morning should keep surface winds elevated through the overnight period, with overnight lows remaining in the mid to upper 60s.

On Tuesday afternoon, the SW CONUS trough will eject across the Southern Rockies into the south central Plains, with strengthening (45 to 55 knot) WSW mid/upper level flow overspreading the region. Meanwhile, a surface low will deepen near the west central KS/NE border, with a dryline extending to the south southwest from the surface low. Strong surface heating should allow for temperatures to rise into the mid to even upper 80s on Tuesday afternoon, and with dew points in the mid 60s and steep lapse rates, ML CAPE should exceed 2500 J/kg. Convective inhibition should be weaker on Tuesday afternoon/evening thanks to strong surface heating and diurnal mixing, but with weak synoptic scale forcing across the open warm sector on Tuesday afternoon/evening, it still look like it will be difficult to get convective initiation. However, if storms do manage to initiate, supercells capable of all severe hazards will be possible. The much more likely scenario, and the scenario that is backed up by most recent CAMs, is convection to initiate along the dryline across Kansas into Oklahoma by late Tuesday, likely growing upscale into clusters or even a line of storms as they approach the CWA late Tuesday night. The severe risk should continue into Wednesday as the upper trough and accompanying surface low and attendant cold front further approaches and eventually moves through the region. However, this risk will be largely dependent on how convection evolves late Tuesday night into Wednesday morning and if the atmosphere is able to sufficiently recover. SPC maintains a 15% (slight risk) probability for severe weather across essentially the entire CWA for Wednesday.

After a reprieve from the threat for strong to severe storms on Thursday, yet another large scale upper trough is progged to cross the Rockies into the Plains on Friday, with a moist and unstable air mass in place across the CWA ahead of an approaching cold front and beneath strengthening southwesterly deep layer flow. This will present another threat for strong to severe storms Friday afternoon into Friday night.

AVIATION /00Z TAFS THROUGH 00Z TUESDAY/

Issued at 1047 PM CDT Sun Apr 12 2026

First few hours of the overnight will present clear skies, but area of MVFR stratus will continue to move northward across the region, and will lingering through the early afternoon hours before scattering out and bases raising to VFR conditions. Strong pressure gradient will maintain breezy southwesterly winds for most of Monday. Isolated shower activity is possible by a strong cap is expected to largely inhibit development.

EAX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

MO...None. KS...None.