5-30: Dewpoints and Possible Outflow Boundaries

Good Saturday everyone!

Some of you this morning may have felt some sprinkles come over your area, especially in the northern and eastern parts of Missouri... right? Well, the SPC has parts of the state now in a 5% risk of severe weather (not even slight risk!), and once again, that might be overdone.

The moisture once again today is very minimal. Models keep saying, "The dewpoints will be high!" As they keep transferring what they think, we can still tell they're wrong. For example, up here near Kansas City, we have a temperature in the 70s this morning with dewpoints in the 50s.

Models are forecasting that the dewpoints could hit 70. As we look into our surface flow from the north, we can tell that their dewpoints aren't any higher; at the most, they are 58 degrees. If we kept getting flow from this direction, that would say a dewpoint of up to 58, but with evaporation from bodies of water, and transpiration from plants, we could get higher than that.

We cannot get any moisture advection either, as the flow aloft is from the NW. This would mean that to get to the dewpoint of the models, we would have to get at LEAST, 12 degrees more on the dewpoint JUST from evaporation and transpiration. THAT IS NOT going to happen. The most I have ever seen is 8 degrees, and that was last year at Whiteman AFB, where they just had like 3" of rain, and the ground was VERY saturated from the whole wet summer in general. So, do you think that's going to happen today, with a SLIGHTLY moist ground. IT'S NOT!!!

Now that we know moisture is out of the way, let's talk about the other factor today-- outflow from morning sprinkles. Sometimes, when a group of showers or thunderstorms die out, especially in the summer months, they will let out cool air around them, which acts kind of like a cold front.

I have not seen any of these yet today, but there likely are some, just not very detectable. Sometimes you can see them on radar, like shown on the side.

This, along with the WEAK wind shift in southern Missouri, could spark of some thunderstorms here in Missouri, but most likely NOT! You can see the very weak wind shift below. If storms do form though, they would move from northwest to southeast, as shown by the flow aloft.


Well, everyone, have a lovely weekend, as it will be a warm one, with temperatures near 90 in parts of Missouri. Just keep your eyes to the skies, but don't change your plans! Chance of precipitation in my opinion this afternoon: 15%, mostly in southern Missouri.