Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family. May you find plenty to celebrate and be thankful for this year. I'm sure if we could deliver some rain to parts of the state, it would be one more blessing to add to our list. No records to be tied or broken when it comes to Thanksgiving. Actually, for a change, we will have "normal" weather for the holiday. Last year, we had 60° on the holiday - not so much this year.
November is NOT usually a wet month for the Plains and this year is keeping with tradition. Average moisture for most of the state is around an inch or less and there just isn't anything out there to break the current dry spell. Speaking of dry, just look how many days (in a row) with less than .25" for northwest Kansas. Goodland hasn't had a good rain since mid July when almost an inch fell.
That would explain why we continue to see an expansion of the "severe" drought across the northwest and some areas in the southwest.
Next week, heading into early December, there's not much sign of change yet. Upper level winds continue out of the northwest and that has the Gulf of Mexico moisture shut off. It would take a miracle to get some rain in Kansas between now and December 5th. Upper level winds need to come from the southwest - and we aren't there yet.
When is winter going to finally hit? The coldest air has been elusive. We've only had a handful of nights with a hard freeze. The Arctic air is present - in Canada anyway. If you look at the 7am Wednesday temperatures, you'll see some of the bitter cold up around Hudson Bay. However, that pocket of very cold air keeps moving east and doesn't show any potential of a southward expansion. For now, there isn't reason to worry about it showing up between now and the first few days of December.
We may have a change coming in our first full week of December though. Some of the models are showing a decent surge of cold air coming this way in the first weekend of the new month and perhaps more likely around December 6-10th. Will it be Arctic air? Probably not, but more typical of December with highs in the 30s and some lows in the teens. As soon as confidence is high, we'll let you know.
Don't forget - winter forecast is coming out November 30th. Have a great Thanksgiving.
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