Good Tuesday evening, everyone. As advertised, we kept quiet under mostly sunny skies once again across the area today. Couple that with a good southwest wind throughout the day, temperatures certainly responded to that. After highs in the upper 40s yesterday and lows in the upper 20s this morning, we had chilly but above normal temperatures with highs back in the upper 50s.
Looking at our weather setup, there aren’t any major storm systems at the surface impacting our weather. There is a weak wind shift line just to our northwest. However, that will fall apart as we head through the night. High pressure off to our south and southeast will keep the southerly and southwesterly wind in place while we wait for our next storm system out to the west.
Upstairs, a weak wave coming across the Upper Midwest will bring developing clouds out of central Kansas and into our area during the overnight. While the upper-level ridge is holding to our west, look at the low out in the Pacific. That’s the next wave that will really change things up as we head through the upcoming weekend.
In the meantime, the partly to mostly cloudy skies coming out of central Kansas will continue to pass through the area through the night and into Wednesday morning. With the clouds and most of us seeing a light southerly and southwesterly breeze, we’ll have lows drop back into the 30s across the area. The colder readings will be across our counties in southeast KS and northeast OK while everyone else will be in the middle to upper 30s.
We’ll plan on partly sunny skies across the area and a southwesterly breeze for many of you for your Wednesday. That will allow temperatures to fare similarly to what we had today. Once we get into the lower 50s to start the afternoon out, we’ll see highs top out in the middle to upper 50s before the day is all said and done.
Looking beyond Wednesday, the quiet game continues for yet another day while we watch our next system work out of the Pacific and ride around the upper-level ridge to our west on Thursday. Under mostly sunny skies, we’ll plan on another afternoon with highs in the middle 50s.
For Friday, that next system starts to gain steam as it works across the Central and Northern Plains. Ahead of it, we’ll have mostly cloudy skies build in throughout the day and possibly see a few showers late in the day. Otherwise, the cloud cover will only let temperatures climb into the upper 40s for Friday afternoon.
This system will start to bring the better moisture in for Friday evening, Friday night and as we head into Saturday. With temperatures in the 40s for Friday evening and midnight highs for Saturday around 42°, this system will start out as rain chances for us. With temperatures quickly dropping upstairs and at the surface as we work toward and past sunrise Saturday, our rain chances will be pretty eager to switch over to snow as the system tracks over the region. With temperatures holding in the lower to middle 30s late Saturday morning and into Saturday afternoon, that’s setting the stage for some wet snow for a good portion of the day. Once we get into Saturday evening, that’s when the system will start to move on and back things down to evening scattered snow showers.
Since the track of this system has changed compared to the other day, the chance for accumulating snow is starting to pick up for us. Our latest look at this system has the best chance for accumulating snow from about Springfield and the US 65 corridor to the east across central and southern Missouri. For a good portion of our area, we still have a good shot to see accumulating snow. The farther west you go, the lower your chances for accumulating snow will be. While it’s still too early to start forecasting snow amounts, this is a change that we’ll definitely be watching over the next few days.
Behind this system, we’ll turn drier to wrap up the weekend and kick off a new work/school week. After the snow chances clear out Saturday night, we’ll see partly sunny skies return for Sunday. It will be cold, though, with lows around 20° and highs pushing into the middle to upper 30s. The jet stream setup below shows how the jet wants to head back in our direction for Monday and Tuesday of next week.
Under partly to mostly sunny skies, the returning jet will get us back into the middle 40s for Monday and even into the lower 50s for Tuesday. Doug has you covered with his long range forecast out through much of February down below. Have a good night and a great Wednesday!
Nick
Jan. 19th-22nd: Cool all week. Rain chances Wednesday and a little snow possible Thursday.
Jan. 23rd-29th: Cool for the first half of the week before we warm up Thursday and Friday with rain chances. Colder by the weekend.
Jan 30th-Feb 5th: Cool the first half of the week but a mild second half of the week. Slight rain chances on Thursday and Saturday.
Feb 6th-12th: Mainly a cool week with rain chances Monday and snow chances on Tuesday. Thunderstorms and mild temperatures by the weekend.
Feb 13th-19th: Sunday turning colder with rain or snow chances. Warming through the week with thunderstorms Thursday and Friday with colder air working in that could finish with snow.
Feb 20th-26: Mainly a cool and dry week with rain and snow chances on Thursday.