textproduct: Kansas City/Pleasant Hill

KEY MESSAGES

- Showers and occasional general thunderstorm chances continue into Sunday morning.

- Increasing confidence in a period of wet conditions from Tuesday through at least Friday. Rounds of heavy rain may yield an increasing river and areal flooding threat through the week.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 239 PM CDT Sat Sep 26 2026

Sort of a tale of two days situation across the area so far today with a couple of waves of showers/weak thunderstorm activity. The first of which has already all but moved out of the area, and the second more recently moving into western areas of the CWA. In between, areas roughly east of US-65 are even enjoying some sunshine peeking through. All of this activity is broadly associated with a mid-level shortwave trough lifting NE through the region and smaller embedded disturbances and will continue to linger periodic scattered shower and weak thunderstorm activity into Sunday morning before more substantial drying and mid-level height rises move in. While initial hi-res guidance suggested relative drying or lesser activity into this afternoon, showers and weak thunderstorm activity may end up being more prevalent than initially thought across portions of far eastern Kansas and into western/northwest Missouri. This due to MCV-like depictions noted on radar throughout the day as activity has lifted into/through Kansas. Coupled with the broader lift with the mid-level wave, tend to suspect an uptick in weak shower/thundershower activity and have begun to be seen on radar as of 2pm in NW Missouri. Nothing of significance aside from a rumble of thunder possible and brief heavy rain. And then overnight, LLJ noses into the area and should again blossom at least scattered shower/thundershower activity into the area. Currently, chances overnight tend to be best south of Highway 36. Previously mentioned mid-level height rises slide in Sunday, drying conditions out through the day.

An interesting, likely quite impactful, pattern sets up across CONUS during the work week. This being current nor'easter milling about, a western CONUS trough/cutoff low moving in-land, the remnants of Pacific hurricanes Polo and Odalys lifting northward across Baja California into the increasingly SW flow pattern, and Gulf moisture streaming northward through the Plains. At this point in time, there is high confidence in the broad scale pattern evolution through at least mid-week, if not the entire work-week. And in effect this spells out a heavy rain/flooding threat that runs from the central/southern Intermountain West and into the Southern to Central Plains. For the immediate area, this potential tends to reside at Days 4/5 (Tuesday/Wednesday) and beyond. For added confidence in the potential, GFS/Euro ensembles (as well as their AI versions) highlight and expansive/broad area of 2-4+ inch QPF through mid-late week, which is impressive when you consider the washed out nature of ensemble QPF. The potential is further highlighted by deterministic solutions, including the 12z GFS, depicting PWats climbing toward and above 2 inches (highly anomalous this time of the year) and swaths/pockets 6-8+ inches QPF. But given the time horizon, there is a good degree of uncertainty in the finer details, such as the exact track of the mid-level cut-off low, its associated surface low, and frontal positions so will stress that locations of peak amounts remain uncertain. After an expansive (geographically) coordination call with WPC today, broad Slight Risks exist on Days 4/5 for the WPC Excessive Rainfall Outlook product, with likely upgrades as finer details come into better focus. Lastly, the current best potential tends to reside over the NW half of the CWA or so, especially as you consider those areas have the most saturated soils as well (via NASA SPoRT).

AVIATION /00Z TAFS THROUGH 00Z MONDAY/

Issued at 611 PM CDT Sat Sep 26 2026

Light rain showers are working east across the region leading to drying conditions from west to east; however, additional shower activity is expected to develop early Sunday morning. MVFR stratus is expected to develop after 14Z Sunday morning along and north of I-70 and looks to remain fairly consistent throughout the day.

EAX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

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