textproduct: Kansas City/Pleasant Hill

KEY MESSAGES

- Seasonable Temperatures This Week

- Fog Possible Tuesday Morning, Cloud Conditions Slowly Clear Up Through Afternoon

- Precipitation Returns to the Forecast Late Thursday, Through Weekend

SHORT TERM /THROUGH WEDNESDAY/

Issued at 358 AM CDT Tue Sep 22 2026

Broad surface anticyclone currently sits over the northwestern Great Lakes Region but its strengthening has been stalled by an H5 short-wave trough that sits over the upper Mississippi River Valley early this morning. This setup has resulted in an inversion around 800mb for most of the lower Missouri River Valley, with plenty of moisture still trapped underneath it. With weak easterly surface winds, fog has been developing across the area, along with scattered reports of drizzle, and overall a thick stratus deck just a few hundred feet above the surface. This is expected to last through most of the morning and even early afternoon across the area. A mid- level ridge is developing over the Intermountain West this morning and will begin to shift eastward, which will being to provide H5 height rises by late this afternoon across the forecast area. This will help to promote subsidence and also allow the surface anticyclone north of the area to and expand southward, eventually clearing out the low stratiform cloud deck and also bringing an end to any light drizzle or sprinkle activity. Mid to upper-level flow will remain northwesterly, preventing any WAA regime from developing and that will be the case through the middle of this weak. High temperatures will be in the mid to upper 60s north of Hwy. 36, with areas southward hitting the lower 70s for the next couple of days. As the ridge axis moves eastward across the area on Wednesday, we will start to see a modest a increase in temperatures back into the mid 70s across by the middle of the weak, especially with strong WAA at 850mb largely driving the mid-level height rises and pushing this eastward. With no notable forcing mechanisms through Wednesday evening, the forecast will remain dry through at least Wednesday and into early Thursday morning.

LONG TERM /WEDNESDAY NIGHT THROUGH MONDAY/

Issued at 358 AM CDT Tue Sep 22 2026

Towards the end of the work week, deterministic guidance shows falling 500mb heights just to our west and shortwaves coming off of the Rockies from a trough over the Western Canadian coast into the Pacific NW. A high at the surface over the northern Great Lakes and into southern Ontario will result in southeasterly flow at the surface bringing moisture from the Gulf into eastern KS. With synoptic scale lift and moisture available at the surface we could see some rain in our area Thursday night into Friday but deterministic and ensemble guidance keeps most of the rain off to our west until Friday morning with about a 15-30% chance of rain Thursday night in NW MO gradually increasing to a 50-60% chance Friday morning for NW MO and 30-50% chance of rain for the rest of the CWA. It is unlikely that we'll see any thunderstorms with this first round of showers as instability and shear looks to be pretty weak. The greater chance for rain moves into our area this weekend, especially Saturday night into Sunday. Guidance shows 500mb heights continuing to fall as we move into more zonal flow and the closed low off the east coast starts to lift further north. The surface high over the Great Lakes continues to bring southerly flow and moisture from the Gulf into our area supporting rain chances through the weekend. We could hear some rumbles of thunder with the rain on Saturday night with guidance showing weak instability on the western edge of our CWA but otherwise we shouldn't see any severe weather as deterministic guidance keeps the greatest instability outside of the CWA. We could potentially see some warmer temperatures this weekend and the beginning of next week with a 70-80% chance of highs above 85, especially south of I-70.

AVIATION /12Z TAFS THROUGH 12Z WEDNESDAY/

Issued at 626 AM CDT Tue Sep 22 2026

CIGS are currently MVFR but there is a chance that more clouds could build in after sunrise dropping CIGS to IFR but visibility should stay above 5SM for the morning. CIGS start to lift to MVFR and visibility returns to P6SM around 15Z and should persist through the forecast period. Winds are light out the north and will gradually shift to ENE around sunset.

EAX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

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