The wet setup still on track

I hope everyone has a good weekend despite the forecast of very wet weather in some areas of Kansas. Although it might be too much rain for some, this will hopefully catch some areas up that still need the moisture. Of course, farmers are concerned it might was out some of the newly planted wheat. We do have areas of drought still that could be eased with this big batch of moisture coming.

What's taking shape?

As we've been saying throughout the week, what makes this such a wet setup is the fact you have a deep storm forming in the west that's basically stuck there until Tuesday or Wednesday (Oct. 9-10). It will be drawing in Gulf of Mexico moisture that feeds into a stationary front. So there will be several rounds of wet weather coming.

Generally speaking, this is what I'm seeing for rainfall amounts as we continue through the next 4-5 days.
By the end of the day Saturday:

End of the weekend:

Add in Monday and Tuesday, and we could see amounts on the order of 4-6 inches in many spots of central and south central Kansas. 

The month is still early, but rainfall amounts of greater than 5" starts putting us near the top 10 of wettest Octobers. It will be interesting to see how much falls and where the majority of this precipitation ends up.

Temperature Trend Coming:

Next week (2nd full week of October) looks pretty chilly across a LARGE area of the Plains and upper Midwest. We have a good chance of being 10-20 degrees colder than normal, which would mean mostly 50s and some 60s for highs. I do think drier weather is coming, but it will be after we pass the 2nd weekend of the month. October 2018 is off to a pretty active start.

Round #1 over - next one arrives Friday

So we are off and running on our week long rain chances. Here are some totals through 7 a.m. Thursday.

A 50! degree temperature change for some parts of Kansas today. Isn't this incredible? Even if you don't like cool, fall weather, you have to agree that going from record 90° heat to 40s in 24 hours is just unreal. Goodland had a record Wednesday afternoon of 94. Wow!!

So today's cold front becomes a warm front Friday. Much of the state will be back in the 80s Friday afternoon.

It's not until Friday after 7 p.m. that we start to see round #2 coming through Kansas. Severe weather isn't likely, but more areas of heavy rain will sweep through Kansas.

More rounds of rain will be coming Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and there will still be some rain early Wednesday. That's 8 days of rain chances! When we get to the middle of next week, we still expect central and eastern Kansas to see 4, 5, maybe even 6 inches of rain. Far western Kansas is expected to get an inch or two. 

Be prepared to deal with standing water and maybe some flooding issues. The good news is that being spread out over several days should hopefully reduce the amount of flooding that we'll see.

A week of rain? Looks that way

Good Tuesday morning and thanks for spending a little bit of time with us.

By now you're probably seeing the forecast in many different places calling for days and days of rain chances for Kansas. Are we really in for that many days of moisture? Some areas in Kansas could be in for that many days of rain, but once again, it's all about location.

The next chance arrives Wednesday night/early Thursday:

This is our first cold front of the week and highest rain chances will be focused mainly east.

Friday:

Another front will setup over Kansas and then push south into the night. This round of rain should be more widespread and catch more areas of the state.

Into the weekend:

A huge, slow moving storm forms just west of the Continental Divide into the weekend. This storm will have a wet side and a snowy side to it. Most of the snow will fall from Colorado up to Montana and stay mainly in the high elevations. What we are going to see is potential 2 to as many as 4 rounds of rain and storms. Each one will continue to soak our area.

By the time we get to the middle of next week (about Wednesday), many areas will have had 2-4 inches of rain, with the highest being over central and eastern Kansas. There could be rain gauges that fill up with this particular setup. Amounts of more than 4 inches are not that out of reach given the slow moving setup.

Hope this helps you plan. We will be posting updated Future Track model views within our Storm Team 12 app so you can see updated timing on when the rain arrives and when it departs. But it will be days before we return to drier weather in the Plains.