textproduct: Kansas City/Pleasant Hill

KEY MESSAGES

- Warm and dry through the weekend. Temperatures trend cooler by the end of next week.

- Minimal precipitation chances return Tuesday through Wednesday (10- 25% chances, mainly AM); higher potential late week (40-60% chances).

DISCUSSION

Issued at 248 PM CDT Sat Oct 24 2026

Another dry and warm day across the region. Southerly warm air advection pushes highs toward 80 degrees for most of the area which is well above seasonal expectations of 64F. Precipitation chances for early week remain minimal as rain is more likely to stay north and west. More widespread precipitation chances return late week; however, uncertainty remains fairly high with the spatial extent of synoptic features and associated rainfall.

Beyond the beautiful weather conditions today, water vapor satellite imagery shows a complex interconnected web of weather systems that will influence our forecast over the next week. A trough across the SW CONUS has cut off from the overall flow as anticipated, a ridge builds across the central CONUS, another low pressure system migrates through interior Canada, and another trough across the SE CONUS compliments the western CONUS trough. The satellite picture yesterday morning did not present such a clear picture of the emerging weather systems; however, most all guidance did pick up on the evolution of the SW CONUS cut off low which is one of the critical influencer in this week's weather. This does increase confidence and reduce uncertainties, but does not eliminate them.

All the previous mentioned systems were at the 500mb level, at the low to mid levels a large high sits over the Ohio Valley as analyzed on the SPC 850mb analysis. This high has been gradually expanding westward pushing stable descending air into the region acting as one of the primary drivers our pleasant conditions over the past several days. Warm air advection from southerly oriented low to mid level flow has been pushing our high temperatures well above seasonal expectations. One other characteristic of this air mass has been how dry it is with dew points in the 40s. Most sounding analysis has lifted condensation levels around 7000ft and ceilings or where the air is much closer to saturation around 20,000ft making short term PoPs pretty much zero.

One of the most significant components to our weather picture is not even in the CONUS at this moment. A pair of 500mb lows across Canada have a midlevel high sandwiched between there respective positions. This high is expected to eject out toward the central CONUS this push of cooler Canadian air is expected to promote the development of a synoptic scale front across the interior of the CONUS, a small semblance can be seen with clouds across the Dakotas. Ejecting shortwaves from the SW CONUS low have been sparking off convection across the boundary for several days. As the midlevel high moves southeastward, this synoptic front pushes towards our region. Simultaneously, the low across interior Canada migrates eastward and the SW CONUS low starts getting absorbed into the overall flow across the continent. This stretches the frontal boundary almost wrapping it to the west and north of our region. This also slows the progression of the lower level high which weakens the thermal and dynamic gradients of the front. All of this combined with the dry air in place across our area results in relatively low precipitation chances (10-20%) Tuesday through Thursday, mainly during the morning hours. As the front wraps around eastern Nebraska into Iowa much of the precipitation potential looks limited to far NW MO. Furthermore, referring to the sounding analysis mentioned earlier, any precipitation development will have to overcome a fairly deep 5000ft dry layer before reaching the surface. The lack of significant temperature gradients, moisture boundaries, and instability, do not promote much confidence in precipitation potential. However, those are not enough confidence nudgers to say there will not be rain, it just has many challenges.

Once the front settled into position it looks to sit there through the end of next week. Aloft, flow becomes more progressive and the general divide between the cooler north jet and the subtropical jet sinks southward. This lowers high temperatures slightly on Tuesday to the low 70s while shortwave perturbations build up across Rockies. As the upper level pattern shifts this shortwave pass by the region being deflected by the still residing lower level high across the SE CONUS. This deflects systems northward, but does keep low PoP chances across NW MO Wednesday as they pass by the area. This also works to bump our high temperatures Wednesday back to the mid-70s.

Getting to late week ensemble guidance slowly drifts the synoptic frontal boundary closer to the area. The upper level pattern remains fairly progressive with more frequent upper level waves moving across the country. Ensemble guidance suggests this will create a pattern of frequent midlevel lee troughs progressing along the boundary using the kinematic and thermal gradients to initiate showers. This pattern looks to keep rain chances in the forecast through the weekend. Many uncertainties remain with this solution as it is heavily dependent on the locations of the front and pressure perturbations. With this many subtle deviations possible even deterministic models tend to broad brush precipitation chances. Uncertainty is likely to narrow as the pattern more firmly establishes itself Monday and Tuesday.

EAX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

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