textproduct: Kansas City/Pleasant Hill

KEY MESSAGES

- Dry weather will persist (>90 percent chance) for the next seven days.

- Very warm temperatures are expected next week. Record highs are in jeopardy on Christmas Day.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 207 AM CST Sat Dec 20 2025

An unusually breezy night is in progress, with a very strong low-level jet moving overhead in tandem with a surface low trekking quickly near the U.S./Canada border. A cold front will surge southeastward as the low advances through Ontario this morning, crossing our forecast area during the day. Moisture is scarce, and large-scale lift is weak. Thus, no precipitation is expected with the frontal passage. The front will also struggle to cool us during the day as diurnal heating compensates, so forecast highs remain a few degrees above average. Temperatures will be colder tonight, though, bottoming out in the 20s across the region. Sunday's highs will be similar to today's, as a surface ridge progresses eastward and return flow sets up once again.

This will set the stage for a very warm week across the lower Missouri Valley, thanks to a broad, high-amplitude ridge encompassing most of the CONUS. The ridge builds through at least Thursday, as its axis reaches the central U.S. by then. This amplification will be due in part to a very strong system off the Pacific Coast, providing considerable warm/moist advection downstream and an abundance of latent heat release from the bouts of copious precipitation it generates in the western U.S. for much of the week. With such a sluggish, high- amplitude pattern, record highs are typically threatened near and just upstream of the ridge axis. Sure enough, our forecast highs on Thursday would break records in Kansas City and St. Joseph (see record information below). NBM probabilities of 70+ degree highs are near/north of 50% on Christmas Day from I-70 southward and non-zero all the way to the Iowa border. That would be 30+ degrees above seasonal averages.

What will become the main forecast question beyond the holiday is how that Pacific Coast system translates eastward. This is still beyond the official forecast period (since it will still be a West Coast player through at least next weekend), but the evolving pattern certainly portends that that system progresses eastward across the U.S. in some manner. Even progressing into such an amplified ridge, the strength of the attendant vorticity maximum and synoptic forcing would suggest a vigorous system of some sort. However, as tends to be the case this far out with the general breakdown of the blocking pattern, models are wildly variable with this evolution. We have several dry and warm days to figure out if we see some meaningful precipitation locally before the end of the calendar year.

AVIATION /18Z TAFS THROUGH 18Z SUNDAY/

Issued at 1118 AM CST Sat Dec 20 2025

VFR conditions anticipated for the duration of the TAF period. Northerly winds will occasionally gust to around 18-20 kts this afternoon/evening and weaken as we lose daytime heating. Winds will shift to the south/southeast by late tomorrow morning.

CLIMATE

Issued at 207 AM CST Sat Dec 20 2025

Record High Temperatures:

December 25: KMCI: 67/1922 KSTJ: 65/2019

Record High Minimum Temperatures:

December 25: KMCI: 53/1936 KSTJ: 51/1936

EAX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

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