The beat just keeps going on weather wise out there, as we're enjoying another fabulous day with highs near 70 and relatively light winds. Of course we're talked quite a bit about the dry weather of late, and September will go down as the driest month of the entire year with about 1.14". this will be the driest since last DEC when we had a paltry .52". The dry spell that we're going through will continue for about another week before the rain chances start to go up heading towards next FRI-SAT.

For MO the dry spell is turning into a drought for areas south of KC proper...take a look.

Moderate drought is now creeping up towards southern Cass county and Severe drought is now becoming more entrenched across Vernon county and points southwards.

Meanwhile on the KS side...the latest information is certainly grimmer as an extreme-exceptional drought is continuiing across the southern parts of the state with moderate drought conditions spreading up into the far SW corner of Johnson county.

One look at the rainfall over the past 30 days certainly helps to confirm this...take a look at the latest rainfall compared to normal.

All that RED you see represents rainfall that is 50% or worse of average for the previous 30 days. Now if we extend this out to the last 60 days here are the results.

Now lets go out the last 90 days and again notice where the RED coloring is...

Interesting as well to see the changes occurring towards NW MO as well as SE NE/SW IA...where the excessive rainfall has been replaced over the past 30 days by a drier period. this has allowed the flood waters to recede at a somewhat faster rate than anticipated.

Just for giggles here is the year summary so far...

Meanwhile lets contrast that to whats going on across the northeastern part of the country...

The purpleish color represents precipitation in excess of 150% of average.

We touched on Ophelia a bit yesterday, it strengthened quite a bit over the past 24 hours and is, as of this writing a major hurricane with winds of 115 MPH...the eye is very vividly seen on the latest IR satellite picture...

Ophelia will pass off towards the east of Bermuda but will threaten and become an issue for Nova Scotia later Sunday night into Monday morning. It should be a close call for the SE coast of Canada.

GFS and it's ensembles still bring the rain here on FRI...EURO really never gets the rain here at all until potentially a week from Monday...we continue to discount the EURO operational run, at this point we feel that it's typical model error of keeping to much energy held back into the SW part of the country is again on display.

Oh and don't be surprised if I talk about a bit of snow over the weekend...no not here, but out towards the higher elevations of the Mid Atlantic states, especially WV/MD/PA.

That's it for today...not too sure what I'll blog about over the weekend...I'll see if I can come up with anything.

Joe

I haven't even tried to put together a weather blog for the last 5 days. I thought about it over the weekend, and as youo know it's very unlike me NOT to do a couple of weekend blogs for you, but in all honesty there wasn't a single thing that I thought off that would really be interesting to blog about that had any relevance to our weather locally. Not that today is really that much different, although after quite a few days of little wind...that has changed thanks to a cold front that has moved through the area. In it's wake a pretty strong area of High pressure has started to build into the western Dakotas and MT...this is sending air rushing down through the western plains states towards our area and has created those wind gusts. Winds up towards NE are still gusting to about 35-40 MPH so it is certainly going to be a windy afternoon out there however the winds will start to drop off this evening and go fairly light by early tomorrow AM.

Speaking of the winds, up towards the Great Lakes they are going to be howling. Storm Warnings are in effect for Lake Michigan an Lake Superior. There is the potential for winds of near 60 MPH tonight and tomorrow AM up there.

Temperatures yesterday maxed out in the 80-85 range and today we should be in the same general zone, perhaps a couple of notches lower. The air in NE is about 5-8 degrees cooler than here and that's the air rushing our way now. Although there are some clouds to the north of the metro, they should thin somewhat as they move through in the next few hours.

Highs tomorrow and Friday should be around 70 with lows back into the 40s . Dry air and light winds will again be the prevalent weather for the next several days.

So when do things change...well the atmosphere will be going through it's normal fall transition to a stormier regime around the country. The 1st effects of this transition will be out across the western third of the country as a strong trof in the atmosphere comes ashore by the middle of next week. The model data has been pretty consistent with this potential for quite some time. The EURO model has had it's rough spots with what it's doing with the storm (keeping it all out towards the west). As a matter of fact it never gives up precip through the next 10 days. However the ensemble runs of the same model handles things more like the GFS has been indicating so aside from the operational EURO, pretty much every other model is more or less in agreement that the rain chances will markedly go up starting NEXT FRIDAY...so we've still got another 7+ days of dry weather to deal with.

The advance of this system will help to usher in milder/warmer air again next week. Temperatures for most of the week should be at least 10 degrees above average with highs up into the 80-85 range again. The air will be dry initially but at least some gulf moisture should get pulled northwards by next Thursday. Until then though the dewpoints look to be very dry for quite some time. Eventually we'll start to at least see some moisture, in the form of at least clouds either later next THU or sometime on FRI (7th).

Well talk a lot more about that scenario later in the weekend when things become a bit more clear for the timing...but at least some rain looks likely in the 10/7-8th time frame.

The tropics are still active. Ophelia which fell apart then regenerated is now near hurricane force and looks pretty darn good on the satellite loop this afternoon and there are indications of an eye trying to form...

Ophelia is forecast to become the seasons 4th (only) hurricane by the end of the day tomorrow, however it shouldn't threaten any land areas for the next 5 days although will be passing off towards the east of Bermuda if the present track holds.

2011 has certainly been a wild year for the weather...the folks at the Weather Channel have done a nice job with a record compilation of what has happened...take a look.

Meanwhile the heat is still baking parts of TX...Austin will hit 100 again today breaking a daily high record and perhaps from here on out there will be no more 100s for them for the rest of the season...hopefully.

Have a great rest of the day and keep those feet planted firmly on the ground.

Joe

Welcome to fall...which came in this morning @ 4:05 CDT...but in reality the last day of summer and the first day of fall have been nearly a copycat of each other with highs around 70 degrees and plenty of sunshine.

This will be a remarkable stretch of weather, that aside from some cloud cover Sunday into Monday, will be marked, at least for the next 4 days, by cool crisp mornings and pleasant afternoons. After that there should be a brief warm-up Wednesday into Thursday, then another shot of cooler air for a couple of days...

What the modeling is very sure about is a lack of significant storms that will really affect our part of the country...indications continue this afternoon, about what I blogged about last weekend, that this dry stretch which now is only @ 5 days @ KCI will double, if not come close to tripling before our rain chances increase. In reality I really don't see anything that looks promising for a LONG time...our GFS model gives KC a whooping .01" of rain, connected with our late next week cool front...good luck with that.

What will probably happen is the dry air from the ground through 10K feet will be tough to overcome later next week. Surface moisture of significance will be even tougher to come by as dry west and SW surface winds will move into the area TUE-THU...effectively keeping any moisture source cut off. So the next front will not have any moisture to work with.

Fall can be a rather dry time around here anyway. Surface moisture is tough to come by and without it, instability is tougher to come by. That means rainfall, with the fronts is a bit tougher to come by as well. The new EURO is positively depressing for rainfall of significance through next weekend...so our dry September will turn into a dry 1st 5 days of October it appears...if not longer.

Speaking of dry spells...did some quick calculations here are the longest dry spells at some of the reporting stations in the area...KCI: 14 days...Downtown: 16 days...Pleasant Hill: 11 Days and Gardner: 11 days which they've done 3 separate times. Statistics like this are always arbitrary, since summer rainfall can be so spotty sometimes but it is what it is.

Over the weekend, I'll be watching an upper level low that will continue to deepen and "retrograde" or move from the east to the west. This should at least increase the cloud cover by the end of the weekend and continue to usher in cooler air aloft, and on the ground from the NE and east. This means highs for the weekend should be in the 65-70 range and lows in the 45-50 range.

That's about it...I'll try and come up with something to blog about over the weekend...but boy will it be tough, and I hate just regurgitating the same information again...so I'll be on the lookout for something interesting to talk about from a weather standpoint.

Joe

A couple of days ago the NWS came out with their assessment of the Joplin tornado that struck on May 22nd. The purpose of the report is to evaluate and improve the information stream and the quality of information that comes out of the local offices...essentially it's a self review of what went wrong...what couple be improved upon, what went right and, in these newer reports how people reacted to the information given to them. It's a 30+ page report that is available here if you want to read it in it's entirety

Here is the press release issued by NOAA....

Joplin tornado offers important lessons for disaster preparedness

New report offers way forward to reduce deaths during dangerous tornadoes

Today, NOAA’s National Weather Service released its final assessment report on the May 22 tornado that struck Joplin, Mo. The report identifies best practices and makes recommendations to help save more lives during future violent tornadoes. Most importantly, the assessment emphasizes that people must be prepared to take immediate action when a warning is issued.

“The tornado that struck Joplin offers important lessons about disaster preparedness,” said National Weather Service Director, Jack Hayes, Ph.D. “Tragically, despite advance tornado outlooks, watches and warnings, 159 people died and more than 1,000 were injured. At NOAA we will do all we can – working with our partners throughout the weather enterprise and emergency management – to reduce the impact of similar disasters.”

Within days of the tragedy, Hayes sent an assessment team to Joplin to examine warning and forecast services provided to the community, warning communications, community preparedness and the public’s response to tornado warnings.

The team determined that a number of factors contributed to the high death toll. Through interviews with more than 100 Joplin residents, the team found that societal response to warnings is highly complex and involves a number of factors, such as risk perception, overall credibility of warnings and warning communications.

The report includes a number of key recommendations:

·         Improve warning communications to convey a sense of urgency for extreme events. This will compel people to take immediate life-saving action;

·         Collaborate with partners who communicate weather warnings to develop GPS-based warning communications, including the use of text messaging, smart phone apps, mobile communications technologies, in addition to upgrades to the Emergency Alert System and NOAA Weather Radio;

·         Collaborate more throughout the weather enterprise to ensure that weather warning messages sent via television, radio, NOAA Weather Radio, local warning systems such as sirens – are consistent to reduce confusion and stress the seriousness of the threat; and

·         Continue to increase community preparedness.

Hayes directed National Weather Service staff to move forward to implement the recommendations as soon as possible. The high death toll from the tornado was also catalyst for the August 17 launch of “Weather-Ready Nation”. Building a Weather-Ready Nation will require the efforts of the entire weather enterprise - the National Weather Service, the private weather industry, emergency managers, partners and academia - to provide better information to the public so that they can make better decisions to save lives and livelihoods.

 

This was the single deadliest tornado in U.S. history since modern record-keeping began in 1950. Rated EF-5 on the Enhanced Fujita scale, this mile-wide tornado was the largest and most powerful type, and it traveled 22 miles on the ground.

 

NOAA's National Weather Service is the primary source of weather data, forecasts and warnings for the United States and its territories. NOAA’s National Weather Service operates the most advanced weather and flood warning and forecast system in the world, helping to protect lives and property and enhance the national economy. Visit us online at weather.gov and on Facebook.

 

NOAA’s mission is to understand and predict changes in the Earth's environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and to conserve and manage our coastal and marine resources. Join us on Facebook , Twitter and our other social media channels.

end release...

One of the many key findings that the report illustrated is that the folks in Joplin have started to ignore the sirens, and since for them, the sirens have been providing a first indicator of danger, this is troubling. Over the years there have been sooooo many warnings issued, whether it is a tornado warning or even severe t/storms warnings that people now ignore them by and large. In Joplin, they set off the sirens in non-tornadic situations if the winds of a t/storm were potentially 75MPH or higher...so in addition to the tornado warnings triggering the sirens now they go off down there for severe t/storm warnings with 75 MPH winds.

Also of note in the report was the nationwide average of 76% false alarms for tornado warnings...in other words ONLY 24% of tornado warnings are verified with an actual tornado. That's not very good, and it shows several things, one of which is the difficulty, even with our modern equipment, of detecting actual tornado formation...we can, in many cases see the conditions leading up to it, we can identify a rotating cell, but we still have a tough time picking out the individual tornados themselves before they form. This startling statistic is also tough for the NWS. In many cases a warning is issued and even though there may be a tornado on the ground with the storm, if nobody sees it and nothing is reported, it goes down as a miss. So the warning was perfectly executed but since nobody sees anything, perhaps at night or in some rural area...again it's a miss and contributes to the false alarm stats.

The Springfield office is known within media circles for the tendency to issue many warnings. There have been times our local office here will be tracking a severe t/storm with no history of tornado formation...and as soon as it crosses into the Springfield jurisdiction, a tornado warning is issued. I've witnessed this many times myself. Their office also had a 85% false alarm ration from 2010-5/22/2011. So between all the false alarms, admittedly a number that is inflated somewhat because of a lack of reports of tornados, and the sirens going off for higher end severe t/storm warnings...people their have siren fatigue especially when those sirens go off for the first time in an event.

Now this isn't the only reason for the large death count. Unfortunately, when you have an EF4-5 tornado ripping through a major community, there is very little people in the direct path can do. Even if you execute a perfect response and get to your safe place, sometimes still it is not enough.

Another key finding is that it we can only sample the lowest levels of a storm every 5 minutes or so with our current doppler radar set-up/programming. There is now thoughts that we need to see how we can break free from those constraints. For Joplin, the storm went from producing funnel clouds to producing a massive EF5 tornado within minutes...it was a VERY tornado storm to warn people about because this happened all on the doorstep of the city.

The NWS had the warnings in place though well before the tornado hit...and that was critical for the community and no doubt saved many lives...now the trick is how to communicate that information coherently and quickly so that people can take the proper action.

Joe

Sometime about 3-4 months from now, when it's snowing like crazy, somebody somewhere out there will think back to a beautiful stretch of weather from late September through early October...this would be that stretch. It started n Monday, and with the exception of a few periods of clouds, maybe a light shower/sprinkle over the next 10-15 days, it's going to be wonderful out there.

Sadly, for those who are trying to grow grass, it's the worst combination of dry air, soon to be warming temperatures and a lack of decent rainfall. That means a LOT of hose dragging and a bigger water bill is heading our way...it's going to be awfully tough to keep up but I'll try. You can definitely tell how much more the grass likes the rain as opposed to the watering...

The pattern overall will stay non-productive for us as a series of strong upper level storms carves off a big trof across the eastern part of the country. As I talked about last weekend, this will place us in a general NW flow, at times even a North flow, allowing weak cold fronts to pass through every so often. Temperatures will moderate into the 80-85 range (like yesterday) ahead of a frontal passage and then cool down into the 70s behind the front. Overnight lows till further notice will mainly be in the 40s and 50s. The humidity levels will be typically low for this time of the year.

Sadly as well...while the nights will be nice and pleasant, which is good for the leaf changing that has slowly started, the combination of the summer stress and dry spells and now a crucial dry spell going into the leaf changing season means our fall colors may not live up to the potential that is there. We've had some rough fall foliage years over the last several years and I think this year may fall into that category again.

The tropics are still going, Ophelia is out there, right now a tropical storm in the Atlantic Ocean.with winds of 45 MPH and is forecasted to limp along for the next 3-5 days with winds no stronger than 50 MPH...it will be affecting the islands though...here is the forecasted movement...

At this point rainfall/flooding looks to be the biggest threat from this storm....


It's going to be awfully tough to come up with weather blogs for the next couple of weeks, with absolutely nothing going on of real significance for us...however there are some topics that I want to cover, one of which is the assessment report that was issued by the NWS yesterday concerning the Joplin tornado...that will be the subject of tomorrow's blog, including the potential of how it could effect our area in a HUGE way coming up next spring...

Joe

Good Morning...while a watch a few more sprigs of new grass germinate this AM...and while I wait to head out and help MC another golf tournament for the benefit of the Marine Corps...I thought I'd put together a quickie weather blog for you...although in all honesty, our weather is once again going to be marked by few, if any, significant rains for potentially the rest of the month as I'm not liking the direction we're going kick off the fall season which by the way gets underway later than ever this year...Friday the 23rd @ 4:05 AM...

Before I get into the weather...my twitter feed last night had this amazing video of the Tsunami in Japan back in mid March on it. I guess the video just came out...so put yourself in the car driving to wherever...as the tsunami is approaching then hitting...your essentially trapped, and there's a video camera running for the whole time. Make sure you look towards the upper left circled area and see what's going on...amazing stuff to be sure! Here it is...

The rainfall yesterday was nice, not overwhelming, but nice. For the most part...it seems that it was a few tenths of an inch or so. A couple of areas got closer to .5+ but those seemed few and far between. If you ad up the last few days though...amounts were in the .33"-1.0" range for many areas. As mentioned though I'm increasingly concerned that another prolonged dry stretch is beginning. Late summer and early fall is often the best weather time of the year here I believe, typically the days are mild an the nights are cool. Rainfall can be tough to come by because typically the gulf moisture is cutoff or lacking because of the progress of various cold fronts moving through the US...also systems typically start to speed up, in a reflection of faster jetstream winds aloft, this faster movement also doesn't allow enough time for return flow to establish itself, allowing gulf moisture to move back towards the north. This should be in play tomorrow as another decent cold front rapidly moves into the area from the NW. This cold front should move through between 3-6PM tomorrow afternoon, ahead of the front highs should be in the 80-85 range, behind the front on Wednesday...closer to 70-75 or so. Behind it a large sprawling area of cooler High Pressure will build in and dry things out and allow some great weather to set up...not as dreary or drab as the last shot of chillier weather last week. more typical for this time of the year. Highs will return to average or so towards the weekend.

The longer range GFS and the EURO through 10 days suggest minimal rainfall, perhaps a few light showers here or there, but nothing really substantial for the rest of the month and looking at the upper level maps through the end of the month leaves one wondering how it will rain again in the foreseeable future and a persistent NW flow, if not NNW flow establishes itself...with repeated cold fronts and brief warm ups heading this way for the next 5-10+ days. The bottom line is that, like I mentioned yesterday, get ready to do a lot of watering for quite some time.

I continue to monitor the weather across the country and the incredible amount of high end weather disasters that have occurred this year.  I believe I saw over the weekend that the recent flooding in NJ is their worst weather disaster on record per the emergency managers there. Check out this map showing the number of weather related disasters since 1980...fascinating that TN is so highly ranked...

Finally did you ever wonder what it would be like to be on the ISS, flying above the earth with a perfect view of the planet...it looks pretty cool. Check out this neat timelapse from NASA showing what it's like.

Joe

Well the rain was a welcome sight this AM across the region...granted IF you had outdoor plans they were messed up. Rainfall amounts were in the .5" to 1" range, and it seemed to me at least to be one of those good soaking type rains...in other words, as I mentioned on the show this AM...good grass growing weather!

That disturbance has now moved well off towards the east of the region, however we're seeing show pesky showers/patches of drizzle develop on the back side of that disturbance now and those will be an issue for the next severall hours. so while the bulk of the significant rainfall is down with, the activity over the next few hours will be more of a nuisance and totals with this should stay under .2"...

After this whole thing ends, there is going to be a pronounced drying trend that should settle into the area and while temperatures will be considerably warmer for the next couple of days, sunshine and dry air will do that, another rather strong cold front will usher in chillier weather again by Wednesday promising another cool end to the work week with highs in the 65-70 range and lows back down into the 40s.

Here is a look at the front off the latest NAM...this is for 7PM Tuesday evening, showing the front moving into the area...

SW winds ahead of the front should prevent the front from interacting with much surface moisture...dewpoints ahead of the front should only be in the lower 50s so any convection, while not totally out of the question will be very tough to come by.

Texas should get at least some moisture this week...doesn't look like a drought buster by no stretch of the imagination but something is better than nothing...I saw this interesting animation of the evolution of the Texas and Southeast drought that I thought I'd share with you...take a look.

Well that's about it...the rainfall we get today may have to do us for quite some time...that means it looks like I'm doing a lot of watering for the rest of the month.


Joe