Monday January 29 – Afternoon


Monday Night – Becoming cloudy. Low: 34

Tuesday – Mostly sunny. Decreasing clouds after sunrise. High: 43

Tuesday Night – Clear. Low: 29

Wednesday – Sunny. High: 55

Wednesday Night – Mostly clear. Low: 36

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DISCUSSION:

The plentiful sunshine over the region today will stick around until the later half of the week keeping sunshine lovers happy after last week’s abysmal weather. A weak cold front will bring an increase in cloud cover overnight Monday into Tuesday, but these clouds will be largely scattered in nature and should exit by the daytime on Tuesday. The cold front will knock our temperatures back down to near average for late January (low 40s) on Tuesday before another warmup is expected for Wednesday and Thursday.

Travis

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Forecasters: Jackson, Travis

Date Issued: 01/29/2024 5:00 PM CST

Technical Discussion:

The forecast has remained largely unchanged since this morning. The GFS and the NAM has unsurprisingly started to come together in their handling of subtle features associated with the incoming shortwave. Regardless, abundant sunshine and a warming trend beginning Tuesday night still looks on track for this week.

A weak shortwave is currently situated over the Upper Mississippi River Valley between a progressing longwave trough over the eastern CONUS and an amplified, upper-level ridge over the western CONUS building into the Midwest. This shortwave will propagate southeast with the center of the 500-hPa low moving through southern Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and diving south into the OH River Valley. the center of this system and its associated impactful weather will keep well to the east of mid Missouri. It will drag a cold front across the region Monday night into Tuesday morning. Deterministic guidance has slowed the progression of the front since this morning’s runs. Earlier runs of the GFS and NAM had fropa occurring near 09Z, but guidance as shifted towards a 06Z passage. Additionally, the NAM fell in line with the GFS regarding the extent to which cold air would infiltrate south and west while the GFS fell in line with the NAM regarding a much drier atmosphere in Missouri. As such, no longer expecting a possible sprinkle anywhere in mid Missouri.

This cold front will help to bring temperatures back down to average (low 40s) for Tuesday. Agreed with the NBM medians for Tuesday’s daytime high and overnight low, but tending a little bit more aggressive with the subsequent warmup. As such, went with the NBM 75th percentile for Wednesday’s daytime high. The aforementioned upper-level ridge will continue to build into the region resulting in more above average temperatures for Wednesday and Thursday.

Travis