First rain... then the severe chance

Flooding in Krum, TX

More rain is on the way to much of the central and southern Plains. Flooding continues to be a huge problem in parts of Oklahoma and Texas. The weather pattern continues to send us storm after storm. Even if the rain has interfered with some of your spring activities, you have to admit, it's much nicer having the rain than chasing wild fires and watching the grass go brown in early spring.

So we have two storm systems coming through over the next 8-9 days. The first one coming through today isn't anything alarming. We will get more rain and we could have a few thunderstorms, but there certainly won't be severe storms. As far as rainfall amounts go, there will be a considerable drop off in the amounts the farther west that you go. I would expect areas west of Hays to Dodge City to get less than .50", but they will be much higher going east. Some areas could get over an inch.

The big system we are watching for the weekend will setup over the Southwest into Friday. This will put Kansas in a favorable spot for isolated storms into Friday evening. Those will move east and eventually weaken later in the night.

This will be our second weekend in a row with a threat of bad weather, which isn't such great news for graduations. As we saw last weekend, several things have to be taken into consideration and if even one thing is off, it can mess with the forecast. It's looking like we will have morning rain and some storms (like last Saturday), and that may reduce some of the severe potential during the afternoon. If the timing holds up, anytime after 3 or 4 p.m., we could see storms firing up in central Kansas and then quickly moving east. Storms will likely move at 30-40 mph. It's looking like hail and wind will be the primary mode of severe storms, but an isolated tornado can't be ruled out.