Good morning bloggers,
The weather over most of the nation has calmed down as fall has finally started. We have had Major Hurricanes creating Billion Dollar disasters that have set records in various ways the past few weeks. Hurricane Harvey blasted Texas. Hurricane Irma blasted some of the outer islands and then moved up across Florida after hitting Cuba. Hurricane Maria practically destroyed Puerto Rico and they are currently in crisis, and it hit some of the islands hard as a category 5 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale. Hurricane season is far from over, and in past active hurricane seasons we have experience the fact that it is not over yet. In the next six plus weeks there will likely be a few more named tropical storms. But, today, at least the pattern has calmed down as Maria weakened and is now beginning to move away. Hurricane Lee is harmlessly over the Atlantic Ocean and will also get ejected out as the weather pattern changes.
Something very different started happening just in the past few days, just as the sun set at the North Pole. The cycling pattern that we are about to experience later this fall and through most of 2018 is at its earliest stage of development. The band of rain this morning on the south side of Kansas City is very different than anything we saw all of this past year. This forecast map above shows the weather pattern on October 7th. This is around the time that the old pattern has been wiped out and the new cycling pattern has started. This would not be a very good beginning for Kansas City as a rather broad ridge is forecast for form over a rather large part of North America, but hang on as there will be a lot more too it than just one day. Let’s be patient until the entire picture sets up, the entire pattern cycles through which will take us deep into November.
Sunny The Weather Dog shows us the clouds spreading across the plains this morning. These are altocumulus and altostratus clouds. The base of these clouds, or the ceiling, was around 10,000 to 11,000 feet early today which places the cloud types into the middle cloud category. There may be a few sprinkles from these clouds. They are streaming north from a rather large source of moisture over Texas and New Mexico extending south into Mexico and the Gulf of Mexico.
The clouds will likely be streaming overhead the next two days, but they will gradually be shifting south. By Monday there will be another cold front approaching with a chance of showers and thunderstorms. Between now and then, Kansas City will likely stay dry
This next chart is from the book, “It’s A Sunny Life”. You can order one on Amazon.com and it has this cloud chart and a great section on clouds and weather. The basics of meteorology really begin with clouds and the weather forecaster that masters the cloud types will really begin to become a good weather forecaster as they provide a great insight into what will happen out there.
Now, when is it going to snow? The official 41 Action News Snowflake contest has not started, but you can play the first snowflake game we are playing in the blog over at Weather2020. And, the first snowflakes that we can confirm anywhere in the KC viewing area will end the contest. This often happens way before the first chance of that inch of snow, but not always. Good luck. You have until midight Friday night to enter.
Have a great day! Thank you for sharing in this Action Blog experience featuring Weather2020 and the Cycling Pattern Hypothesis. Let us know if you have any questions.
Gary
Gary: I have a friend that has an outdoor wedding in the Jefferson City area on Saturday, October 14 and are concerned about the weather. I know by then we will probably be in the beginning stages of the new pattern but can you give me your opinion on whether or not it will be wet that day or a better chance it will be dry thanks
Gary: Happy Wednesday afternoon to you sir!! It has been a while and this is most likely just a quick stop by. I am in the middle of grading mid-term papers and other activities so I am going to on the side lines as this next LRC develops. Just a couple of random thoughts: In my very humble opinion, that model run looks very much like this LRC and not a new one.We saw that exact picture several times these past 12 months. It may very well be right, but as Gary always says, it is not what the model… Read more »
Interesting thoughts. It does seem more “normal” to have warmer winters around here. However, that begs the question…why do we continue to expect wild winters when they don’t seem to happen very often?
I agree with Joe
No snow til March.
These next couple of weeks will lock it in. No rains ? No snow for winter when we want it to happen.
Might get cool, like now. But no rain showing up for how long on the GFS Hume Dude ?
Mother Nature I challenge you. Make it happen. Prove me wrong.
Actually looking more active on past run, but not until next week. Couple fronts starting to show up which we would expect going into October
Good
Thanks Hume
We have had tons of rain this year…it’s not going to magically stop when winter comes….thank goodness..snow for a change.
The new pattern will make it stop. If that is what the new pattern wants to do
Some you guys crack me up on here if you remember a few days ago on the blog that Gray wrote up it was dated September 21st . There is a close off high pressure Up in Alaska Nobody was buying in on this either and it was dated October the 7th the 06z GFS model and you guys where not Even buy and into that and neither was Gary. So how are we supposed to buy into this app or ridge Oevet North American now dated the same day October the 7th this is dated 6 days later. So… Read more »
Two volcanos at moderate-high risk of erupting in the near future? Volcanic winter anyone?
https://weather.com/news/news/vanuatu-volcano-eruption-manaro-ambae
https://weather.com/photos/news/bali-mount-agung-photos
My prediction for the firs snow flake is NO snow flakes…… Gary or anyone that would like to chime in, the new radar on the storm shield app does not work very well. Is this just my phone or does anyone else have problems with it?
March at the earliest
Mostly sunny today says the NWS. I think they forgot to look outside
I understand the new LRC hasn’t started or just is about too. With that said I sure hope all the forecast I’m hearing, from my PAID websites (weather bell and AccuWeather), are wrong. Hearing lots of talk of above average temps first half and below precipitation first half and maybe all of October will be warm.? Ugh hope not
Kieth – It could be a long, cold winter this time around. Maybe not! Gotta love the unpredictable nature of weather around here. I think we are about due for at least “average” amount of snow this year, although being due has nothing to do with it. I don’t envision your “Playoffs” rant exchanged with “Snowflakes?”
I’m thinking Allen Iverson “Practice?”, only with snowflakes.
We over here talking about Snowflakes? I’m talking about the game and you wanna talk snowflakes? Really? SNOWFLAKES?
Hume, I don’t remember the Iverson quote, but his sounds a lot like Mora’s. For us weather fans the one thing we don’t want to see, given our knowledge of the LRC, is a 3-4 week stretch of weather dominated by ridges and high pressure. Yet, like clockwork it seems that October is wanting to go that way. One quick thought about the Royals, it’s too bad the team has to break up, this team needed three pieces, one bat, one closer, and one pitcher to compete at the highest level. The owners didn’t make it happen for this group… Read more »
Oh, and whenever I see talk of snowflakes I immediately think of Saints coach Jim Mora’s famous rant when asked about the playoffs, “Playoffs? Playoffs?!”. For me it’s “Snowflakes?, Snowflakes?!”, we can’t even get clouds during the winter how are we gonna get snowflakes. My bottle of water doesn’t freeze overnight in my truck during winter, how are we gonna get snowflakes?
I can hear Miser now, “Poof”, as he see’s the Oct 7th set up. Gary was the deep trough that produced all that rain out in western thru central KS on Monday the same patter that produced the ice storm late last winter/early spring? From my memory they seemed very very similar.