textproduct: Kansas City/Pleasant Hill

KEY MESSAGES

- Active weather pattern continues into early next week.

- Strong to severe storms will be possible tonight, primarily across northern Missouri.

- Marginal risk for strong to severe storms on Sunday evening/night.

- Best chance for severe weather comes Monday afternoon into late Monday night. All severe hazards will be possible.

- Locally moderate to heavy rainfall will also be possible.

- Hot temperatures expected today through Monday.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 319 AM CDT Sat May 16 2026

Current H5 analysis shows a shortwave trough across the Upper Mississippi Valley this morning. At the surface, a 1004 mb low is analyzed over central Iowa, with a cold front extending to the southwest into SW Iowa and SE Nebraska. Other than a few low level jet driven showers across Linn County KS and Bates County MO this morning, the CWA remains precipitation free. Additional shower development may be possible later this morning, primarily toward mid Missouri. For this afternoon, temperatures should climb into the upper 80s for most locations, with 10 to 15 mph southerly winds gusting up to 20 to 25 mph. An upper trough will move into the western CONUS later today while the aforementioned shortwave across the Upper Mississippi Valley moves across the northern portions of the Great Lakes toward the NE CONUS. This should yield slightly enhanced WSW mid level flow across the Plains into the central CONUS. Meanwhile, the east-west oriented cold front should remain across southern Iowa into SE Nebraska. Convective initiation is possible by late afternoon in the vicinity of this front across southern Iowa, with this likely growing upscale rather quickly into clusters or even an MCS into tonight. It is possible that convection could enter into northern Missouri, and as such SPC has highlighted areas generally along and north of US Highway 36 within a wind and hail driven slight risk for severe storms. Additionally, with the east-west boundary and the potential for training storms as well as a corridor of 1.8 to 1.9" PWATs, there will be a heavy rainfall threat. CAM guidance suggests that this should remain north of the Iowa border, but again, cannot completely rule out the threat for locally heavy rainfall creeping south of the border into northern Missouri.

The active pattern continues into Sunday, as an upper level trough begins to eject across the Intermountain West with a more subtle shortwave trough moving into the Central Plains. This will result in deepening low pressure across eastern CO into western KS with strengthening southerly flow and warm moist advection south of a warm front lifting northward into the Northern Plains and Upper Mississippi Valley. However, once again the better severe weather setup looks to remain northwest of our CWA across east central Nebraska, NW Iowa, SW Minnesota, and SE South Dakota. That being said, strong to severe storms cannot be ruled out for our area, especially for far NW Missouri. However, most recent CAM guidance keeps our CWA storm free Sunday into Sunday night.

As we head into Monday, the mid/upper trough should take on a negative tilt and eject across the central and northern Plains with an impressive 70+ knot 500 mb SW oriented jet streak developing over NE Kansas and into SW Iowa, with 50+ knot H5 flow overspreading much of our CWA. At the surface, a relatively deep surface low should develop across western KS, with a cold front extending to the northeast and linking up with a secondary surface low across the Upper Mississippi Valley, and a dryline extending southward into SW Kansas and into NW OK and the TX Panhandle. Very strong southerly low level flow should be present Monday afternoon out ahead of the approaching cold front, with sustained surface winds on the order of 20 to 25 mph and gusts up to 40 mph. Temperatures are projected to reach the upper 80s by mid to late Monday afternoon, with continued moisture advection increasing dew points into the upper 60s. Convection should initiate in the vicinity of the surface low and dryline across central Kansas and along the cold front across NE Kansas, SE Nebraska, and into Iowa by mid to late Monday afternoon with these storms approaching our CWA by late Monday afternoon into Monday evening/night. With the hot and moist airmass and steep lapse rates yielding moderate to high instability and strong deep layer shear across our area, SPC has highlighted much of the western and northwestern portions of our CWA (including Kansas City) within an enhanced risk for severe weather on the new Day 3 convective outlook. Large hail and damaging winds should be the primary hazards, but tornadoes will also be possible, especially later Monday evening as the southwesterly LLJ ramps up and yields increasingly cyclonically curved hodographs in the low levels. Some questions that remain for our CWA are whether or not any storms will initiate in the open warm sector out well ahead of the approaching front across our area on Monday afternoon, the speed/timing of the approaching front, and how quickly storms will grow upscale into clusters or a line of storms as they approach our CWA from the west Monday evening. In addition to the severe threat, a plume of 1.6 to 1.8" PWATs will yield a heavy rainfall threat, with WPC maintaining a slight risk for excessive rainfall for much of the CWA. The severe threat may linger into Tuesday toward mid Missouri depending on the exact timing of the frontal passage, but the new SPC Day 4 has shifted the 15% risk area a bit farther to the southeast (Rich Hill to Boonville and areas south/southeast).

AVIATION /12Z TAFS THROUGH 12Z SUNDAY/

Issued at 629 AM CDT Sat May 16 2026

Convection is ongoing south and east of the terminals as of 1130z this morning, but this should continue to move off to the east. VFR conditions are likely to continue through the period. Light and variable winds at the current moment should become southerly and increase to around 12 knots around 15z this morning. There may be a chance for showers or storms later tonight, but for now confidence is not even high enough to justify a PROB30 group.

EAX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

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