A rainy afternoon, what is going on?

Good evening bloggers,

Rain expanded over Kansas City early this afternoon and then filled in.  Here is a radar image from around 3:30 PM:

And, now the NAM model has been consistent with an increasing chance of rain again tomorrow. There is a strange shear axis being left behind. It is difficult to explain, but I will plot a map and show it below:

The above satellite picture shows the watervapor image from around 7 PM. There was a VERY weak upper level low on the southwest side of a shear axis that stretches form the upper low northeast into northern Missouri.  So, the disturbance, or weak upper low on the southwest side of the shear axis is somewhat important for the weekend forecast, but in general the entire shear axis is just as important.  A weak disturbance of rain may spin north along the shear axis Friday night into Saturday morning. This is really quite unusual and a hard thing to predict.  We are going with a 30% chance of rain Friday night into Saturday. Either that chance will go way up, or it will go down to zero.  This type of set-up very rarely will spin a disturbance up to the north.  We will see more evidence as we move into Friday. I will attempt explaining this on 41 Action News tonight.  And, Brett Anthony will have more information in the morning.

Gary

Share on Facebook