Well the much advertised shot of chillier air is certainly here as the day has taken a nice fall turn with readings so far only in the 50s and clouds hanging tough from KC eastwards. The latest satellite image is showing the back edge of the clouds holding tough just to the west of the metro. There have been some thin spots/breaks in the area...with more pronounced sunshine a county or two west of the metro. There are also some breaks in the clouds up tot he north of here...and when you put the pictures into motion, there is a disturbance in SW MO...

All the rain has shifted off towards E MO...there were some good rains out there yesterday, but for the metro the totals were really lacking. Officially KCI had .06" I believe...I live on the south side and I had 2 drops in a sprinkle. Some areas did have .50"+...but most didn't get close to those numbers.

The focus now becomes the cold air that will get reenforced over the next several hours with another shot of chilly air moving this way...this will bring another round of moisture in the form of low clouds into the area during the early evening hours. This will help to usher in the chilliest weather so far this fall season. Lows tomorrow will be down into the 30-35 range. then perhaps into the 20s on Thursday AM. The wind map play a role in the amount of frost we get...also the air will be really dry so we may be talking more freeze than frost unless those winds drop off.

As a result of all this the NWS has issued a Frost Advisory for the region. It's represented by all the counties you see in the lighter blue color.

This will happen again tomorrow night...with more Freeze warnings issued for tomorrow night.

As is typical for these types of airmasses, they come and they go and when they leave the milder air will return, and it's looking like another fabulous weekend is in store. You can see the reflection of the warmer in the temperatures @ 5000' over the latter part of the week.

The blues (chillier air) move away int he top left panel...(THU 7PM)...then we get into the milder air on FRI and then perhaps a small reinforcement of  cooler air on SAT...we'll be in WNW to NW flow for a while...so periodic disturbances in the flow will create wind shift lines that allow mild air to move in, then allow cooler air to move in. So the forecast will have some ups and downs but nothing really that extreme.

Concerning the dry weather...nothing really is expected from the rainfall standpoint for about another week again. The GFS has rain here, associated with a stronger cold front. Obviously from this far out that will be very debatable. The GFS is bringing in gulf moisture ahead of the front early next week. As a matter of fact some of the ensembles are turning this into a stronger storm, much like what we just went through.

On the subject of dry weather...thought we'd put the year into perspective concerning the dryness for parts of the country. Here is a map putting it in focus...

Notice that for MO this is really been a average to borderline, wetter than average year. For the KS side it's been dry(!) ranking, thus far as the 11th driest first 9 months of the year. Notice that in the past 117 years, TX and NM are their driest ever and OK is at the 2nd driest. LA is 4th and GA is 10th. The extremes are certainly there...with OH, PA, NY, VT and NJ at their wettest extreme. Also note the wetter extremes in the northern plains states.

All this is the backdrop for another haboob/dust storm that struck Lubbock yesterday. Here is some interesting video shot yesterday. Winds apparently were gusting to close to 75 MPH...you may remember that in the spring they often had strong winds. It will probably happen again this fall. the NWS in Lubbock has some great information on their website.

that's about it for today...looks like, aside from some temperature swings, another quiet period of weather is heading this way.

Joe