Well not exactly the greatest of days in these parts, as a warm front has set up towards the south of the KC area, it's a situation where you have relatively cool east winds at the surface with stronger S winds just above the surface. That creates lift and hence the periods of rain that have moved through the area. There are a couple of weak disturbances that are helping the cause as well. So periods of rain are likely for the next several hours before things try and dry out this evening and overnight.

This warm front will hang around to the south of the region again tomorrow, however the winds aloft above this frontal boundary will be considerably lighter so at this point not a lot of precip is expected tomorrow.

This warm front will lift rapidly northwards SAT AM near daybreak on SAT. Then on SAT we'll be firmly in the warm sector of our next developing storm system in the Rockies. This will, much like last Sunday, allow dewpoints to rise into the 60s and temperatures to soar well into the 80s. However while the moisture will be in place and the instability will be high, the atmosphere should be capped for the day, so aside from perhaps some scattered storms moving through as the warmer air surges in in the early AM SAT, the day looks to be dry, windy and humid here.

Sunday is where things get much more interesting. There are still strong signals that severe weather will be a major issue on Sunday, but there are still questions about who gets pounded. Regardless of the location, one thing is secure, the storm motions will be ridiculously fast, perhaps in the neighborhood of 55-65 MPH on the MO side towards the east of KC. Any downward transfer of the fast movement of the storms, caused by strong winds aloft, easily would create storms capable of 50-70 MPH winds.

The major issue is the timing and location of this development. It seems from the modeling today that the storms would initiate VERY close to KC and then within 1-2 hours be out of our viewing area. That window at this point is between 10AM-3PM. Should the storms fire up on top of us, the higher risk of severe weather would be towards the east of the metro area.

Should the be a 6 hour slower solution, and the storms fire up from Manhattan to Emporia and Wichita, then the metro would be in the thick of things from 4PM-8PM or so.

It's FAR too early to try and get more specific than that. Suffice it to say that there is POTENTIAL for some nasty severe weather, in what is turning into a VERY active 1st part of April for the USA concerning severe thunderstorms.

Chasers that I've talked too, rightfully hate these set-ups, because while the potential is VERY noteworthy, the chasing of said storms is nearly impossible and even if I wasn't working, I wouldn't even bother with this set-up because there is little chance of staying with the storms as they're moving at light speed. You're only hope is to be in the right spot at the right time about 45-90 minutes after the storm is born to see something or to do some limited chasing depending on the road network. Then should this be more of a MO side scenario, that gets to be more problematic as the terrain isn't nearly as flat for observing too many things.

Again lets just wait and observe how things evolve. If your not a fan of severe weather, you want an earlier eruption of the storms when the instability will be less. If this stuff fascinates you you want things to slow down by at least 3-6 hours which is VERY doable considering it's Thursday.

For what's it's worth...here is the SPC forecast issued earlier this AM...

The folks from Colorado State have issued their forecast for the 2011 Hurricane Season, indicating a bigger year for Hurricanes than average. Last year though was very active as well. It's a PDF report, indicating a higher potential, compared to average, of the US Mainland being affected by a major hurricane.

Meanwhile, while moisture from the sky hasn't been to much of an issue here...not too far away, like about 2 states things are pretty dry. As a matter of fact this drought that continues to develop and expand in the southern plains is pretty nasty. Need to watch this because if it's dry there through the rest of the spring and summer and the heat is festering down there, that could easily expand up towards us as the summer evolves...take a look at the latest drought report...

Have a great rest of the day and thanks for stopping by!
 
Joe