textproduct: Kansas City/Pleasant Hill

KEY MESSAGES

* Warmer temperatures next couple of days - Highs into the 70s, a few low 80s possible Monday

* Showers and storms return to the area later Sunday and into the first half of the work week. - SPC Day 2 (Sunday) and Day 3 (Monday) Marginal Risks

* Cooler Tuesday/Wednesday then warming trend to end the work week and into next weekend.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 207 PM CDT Sat May 2 2026

Many woke up to chilly conditions this morning, including some areas of frost (mainly northern areas). Underneath broad surface high pressure, light winds and mostly clear skies have prevailed across the area. Some scattered cloud cover has blossomed large portions of central, eastern, and southern Missouri in response to diurnal mixing and just enough low level moisture in place. All this to say, a cool and pleasant spring day with highs on pace to top out in the low to mid 60s. Enjoy!

Surface high gradually departs SE, allowing SW near surface flow and general WAA to return. This will push temperatures back up into the 70s across the area and possible low 80s for SW portions of the forecast area, as well as a modest rebound in moisture as Tds increase from the upper 20s/mid 30s to mid 40s/low 50s. A cool front currently dropping through the Northern Plains will approach and stall within the area by Sunday afternoon and provide our next chance for showers/storms. The general environment and setup ahead of this dropping front is well described by the current SPC Day 2 Outlook ... Marginal Risk. SBCAPE depictions continue to top out around 1500 J/kg as moisture pools ahead of front, but within a moderately capped environment in many cases. Given the approaching front is not very sharp/deep in nature and will be slow, a couple questions to ponder... Will there be enough large scale support/lift (shortwave approaching within NW flow) and/or can the cap erode sufficiently (enough moisture?)? Synoptic guidance depicts some weak QPF returns, suggesting yes. And extended HRRR runs (12z/18z) too suggest some scattered convection late afternoon to early evening. Should not be shocking that NAMnest is most robust in convection, and an outlier in that regard. Am leaning more toward the widely scattered depictions in other available hi-res guidance. With supportive deep shear values and predominantly straight hodographs, winds and hail remain the main risks.

SW flow/WAA quickly returns/gets reinforced Monday as a surface low develops and begins to move eastward off the Colorado Front Range. This will shove the stalled out boundary back northward as a warm front and all highs into the upper 70s to low 80s across the entire area. This will also push additional moisture return into the area ahead of yet another, and stronger, approaching cold front. You can broadly think of Monday evening/night as "more" than Sunday in some cases. More moisture, more instability, more lift/support, much more storm coverage, etc. But fortunately the severe risk remains limited (SPC Day 3 Marginal) over the area for a few reasons including... open warm sector remains capped with lack of large scale lift to overcome; frontal timing looks to be after dark (from the north); linear storm mode and parallel shear vectors to boundary. Strong/damaging winds would be the primary risk. While some training storms possible given the setup and slowing to stalling cold frontal progression, a notable lack of ongoing and significant moisture flow/return into the boundary. A few water issues may be possible, but not currently widely anticipated.

Aside from cooler conditions post-frontal, additional non-severe showers/thunder will be possible Tuesday through Wednesday as additional pieces of energy/shortwaves move through the NW flow and off the SW CONUS cutoff low. Expect temps to widely fall back into the 50s.

After Wednesday, while the area to remain within a NW mid-upper level flow regime, there will be more notable height rises and therefore warming temperatures. Temperatures poised to return to the 70s by Friday.

AVIATION /00Z TAFS THROUGH 00Z MONDAY/

Issued at 639 PM CDT Sat May 2 2026

VFR conditions are expected to persist through the period, with generally clear skies aside from some passing high clouds Sunday afternoon. Light west southwesterly winds should become south southwesterly by later tonight, remaining light. Winds should return to southwesterly by around 13z Sunday morning, and increase a bit with sustained winds around 12 knots with gusts up to 22 knots. Winds should turn north northwesterly behind a passing cold front on Sunday afternoon, relaxing below 10 knots.

EAX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

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