textproduct: Kansas City/Pleasant Hill

KEY MESSAGES

- Cooler conditions through Friday, with high temperatures in the upper 70s to mid-80s.

- Several rounds of rainfall chances through the end of the week, with widespread rain chances peaking at 70-90% Thursday night into Friday. Heavy rainfall and flooding is a concern, with a Slight (Level 2 of 4) Risk of Excessive Rainfall Thursday night into Friday.

- Temperatures return to the 90s this weekend, with 100+ degree heat indices potentially making a comeback as well.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 1240 PM CDT Wed Jul 22 2026

Clouds and a few light showers over northwest Missouri this morning from a decaying MCS over Nebraska crossing over into our area. Northerly winds are advecting in drier, milder conditions making it feel very pleasant outside. Looking at the broader upper-level pattern, ridging over the northern Rockies and Inter-Mountain West has led to northwesterly flow over the Northern Plains into eastern Kansas and Missouri today. Shortwaves riding down the east side of this ridge will lead to a fairly active pattern through the end of the week.

Today, expect light showers to stay confined to northwest Missouri near and north of St Joe. Many echoes on radar may not reach the ground due to fairly dry air in the boundary layer toward the surface. Temperatures will stay seasonably mild this afternoon with highs in upper 70s north to mid 80s across our far southern counties. May still see some areas with higher humidity, mainly near agricultural fields, leading to slightly higher heat indices. The greater impact today is from smoke as the jet pulls smoke from wildfires across the Pacific Northwest and northwest Canada into the central US leading to mostly just hazy skies. Could see air quality degrade again overnight tonight as the nocturnal inversion sets up potentially pulling some of that smoke down toward the surface.

Another shortwave riding down the east side of the persistent ridge to our west will develop showers and storms over south- central Nebraska and north-central Kansas later tonight bringing mostly just showers into our area Thursday morning. The CAMs are in fairly good agreement in coverage and timing of these showers with soundings showing almost no instability as they arrive around 7-8AM Thursday morning. These do look likely to linger through the morning into at least the early afternoon, so have brought down temperatures a few degrees from earlier forecasts. Depending on how long cloud cover and showers linger, we could still be too warm. Rainfall amounts on Thursday should be mostly light, around 0.25" or less.

Thursday night into Friday we'll see a more substantial shortwave move in, aiding in the amplification of the low-level jet oriented across eastern Kansas into western Missouri. This will advect in a greater amount of moisture as this system arrives with PWATs increasing to around 2" by Friday morning, increasing to around 2.4" by Friday afternoon. Both these values are significantly higher than even the 90th percentile for climatology indicating rainfall from this system will be very efficient with widespread rainfall totals around 1.5 to 2 inches likely across much of northern Missouri Thursday night into Friday. The NBM shows a swath of 50-60% chance for rainfall amounts in excess of 2 inches from just north of St Joe along and north of highway 36. WPC has most of our area under a "Slight Risk" (level 2 of 4) for excessive rainfall Thursday night into Friday.

Going into the weekend, temperatures will start to climb once more as southwesterly flow continues across our area with the western ridge shifting eastward building into the Central Plains. Expect a return of very hot and humid conditions with heat indices getting back above 100 degrees starting Saturday across our southern counties. This will spread across our entire area on Sunday with heat indices of 100 to 115 possible Sunday and Monday. I guess we are getting close to August... Monday night into Tuesday a nocturnal MCS may bring some relief with the return of northwesterly flow.

AVIATION /00Z TAFS THROUGH 00Z FRIDAY/

Issued at 1040 PM CDT Wed Jul 22 2026

VFR conditions are likely through the forecast. An area of light rain currently over NE KS will diminish as it tracks east this evening/overnight. Another area of precipitation will develop overnight/tomorrow morning over central to eastern KS and slowly track to the east. Adjust the timing back a few hours and also change the prevailing -SHRA to VCSH. Coverage and intensity of this round of precipitation has trended less/weaker.

EAX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

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