textproduct: Kansas City/Pleasant Hill

KEY MESSAGES

- Isolated sprinkles and snow flurries linger through the afternoon. Most will probably not see anything. Accumulations are not likely sans the Truman Lake region where a tenth or two-tenths is possible.

- Coldest temperatures of the season are upon us with overnight lows in the teens and single digits. Temperatures are expected to be below 0F across far northern and northeast MO.

- Several uncertainties remain with Saturday's system. There have been significant fluctuations in the track and snow amounts depending on the scenarios presented by various model guidance.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 246 PM CST Wed Dec 3 2025

A quite cold air mass continues to make its way through the region. Fortunately a push of warm air advection ahead of the front keeps the bitterly cold temperatures at bay until this evening and overnight. As the front moves across the region, some lift from a passing shortwave aloft as well as the front itself looks to generate some sporadic snow flurries around the region through the day. The outlook for flurries has become a bit more pessimistic as warm air advection with a little boost from pre-frontal solar heating has expanded the dew point depressions at low level. Still there remains enough saturation in the DGZ that sprinkles/flurries are possible. No accumulations are expected with the exception of the Lake of the Ozarks and the Truman Lake areas where moisture is a little more favorable. Even with that, accumulations look to be limited to around 0.1-0.2 inches.

Temperatures continue to cool behind the front. After the sun sets, temperatures are expected to cascade downward. Lows range from the teens south of the MO River, to single digits between the MO River and US-36, and below zero across far northern and northeastern MO tantalizingly close to Cold Weather Advisory criteria. Some places may make a run at record cold minimum temperatures for 12/4. Persistent cold air advection through Thursday keeps maximum temperatures at their coldest of the season with highs ranging from 15 across far NE MO to 30 toward far east central KS. The broad surface high combined with a shift in mid and upper level wind turns flow back southerly resuming regularly scheduled early December programming. Highs quickly rebound into the upper 30s and low 40s to close out the week.

Forecast guidance for the weekend remains variable. Depending on which model you consult, the track of the storm has shifted north or south of the area. Most ensemble members favor the northern track taking the core of the storm through central IA; however, this does keep chances for accumulating snowfall Saturday over much of the area along and north of I-70. However, these deviations have not added much certainty or confidence to the forecast. Similar to yesterday, the primary reason for this uncertainty is how the upper wave will manifest itself across the central CONUS. Unlike a more traditional closed cyclone off the Pacific or a deep digging trough from interior Canada. This storm looks to be the product of a more subtle perturbation in the flow. Across many model members, this perturbation is being represented as a layered wave with a northern and southern component of which the cores bypass the area north and south; hence the significant snowfall shift. This contrasts the more concentrated single wave representation models suggested yesterday. I anticipate continued changes in this wave structure thus continued fluctuations in where the core of the snow will fall. It would not be surprising for these fluctuations to be fairly stark in terms of location and amounts.

AVIATION /18Z TAFS THROUGH 18Z THURSDAY/

Issued at 1155 AM CST Wed Dec 3 2025

Main concerns this TAF period are sub-VFR ceilings this afternoon and any precipitation potential. Regarding the latter, precipitation has been very light/brief upstream, so removed mention of RASN in the TAFs with this update, as no impacts are expected at the terminals. MVFR conditions expected (>80 percent chance) through 00z or so, with improvement to VFR expected this evening and continuing through Thursday. End timing of MVFR is a little uncertain, so a couple of TAF amendments may be required for this. Regarding winds, expect north winds through tonight around 8 to 15 kt, diminishing slowly after sunset. By Thursday morning, winds may become more northeasterly around 5 kt.

EAX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

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