Thought I'd get this out earlier today since the afternoon will be a busy one I'm sure.
Rain is now overspreading the metro area as expected. DH earlier talked about a couple of wet snowflakes mixed in at the onset of the rainfall. Some of that is happening here, but I wouldn't be surprised if that happened.
Radar is showing some healthy returns on the southside, however that's probably a combination of rain and snowflakes being detected. We call it bright banding and will lead to higher reflectivities showing up. Here is an explanation...look @ item #23.
Meanwhile here is what it looks like...
A look at the sounding data this AM shows that while the atmosphere is above freezing in the lowest 4000'+ feet or so, there is also dry air through the lower part of the atmosphere.. When rain falls through that layer, it evaporates for awhile robbing the air of heat and cooling it down. We call it evaporational cooling. This can result ice pellets and snowflakes reaching the ground. Because while it may be snowing aloft, most is melting in the lower 5000' of the atmosphere.
This rain will be withh us at various times today. It may stop every so often, then pick back up again. That combined with an east wind at the surface, makes it tough to warm up. 40 or so may be as good as we cvan get today. Just a raw, damp, windy day.
At least the serious snow is staying away...take a look out west...and look for the little stars between the temperatures in RED and the dewpoints in GREEN...most of the snow (reports in blue) is out through the western plains and the Rockies (for now) while the rain (reports in green) is from Olathe southwards as of this writing.
The storm will wrap up and move away from the region tomorrow AM...in it's wake the cold air in NE will wrap in behind the storm and keep temperatures tomorrow near 40 with NW winds of 16-30 MPH...so a blustery WED ahead. after that the weather will be much improved with highs near 50 THU and in the 60s FRI.
Have a great Tuesday!
Joe
No comments:
Post a Comment