Exhibition Verification

Only rarely are we able to post a forecast with no bearing on our annual and monthly verification competitions, so when I posted the forecast for Kansas City just a couple of days before the new year, I wanted to do something a little differently. I openly posted the forecast for Kansas City International Airport, while the other outlets had forecasts for the city of Kansas City, Missouri, which is verified downtown. As expected, it was cooler out away from the city, at the airport. The 6 outlets that forecast for downtown were almost all exactly the same in their verification, while my forecast at the airport was a hair removed from the downtown forecasters. Temperature forcing aside, it was still high pressure, and not much existed to sway anyone in any particular direction.
Actuals: (Downtown) Sunday – High 36, Low 30
Monday – High 39, Low 27

Actuals (Airport) Sunday – High 33, Low 28
Monday – High 36, Low 22

Grade: B

Kansas City, Missouri

Kansas City’s larger portion is on the Missouri side of the river, but many of the large suburbs exist on the Kansas side. None of this really helps with our forecast, or dictates a different climate between the towns.

At 253PM, CT, Kansas city was reporting mostly cloudy skies with a temperature of 49 degrees. West-northwest winds were blustery and bringing temperatures down a bit, but without the clouds that are being seen further to the north, it’s still a quite bearable end to the year.
The clouds and whatnot seen in the Great Lakes is a western lobe of a broader trough on the east coast. The cooler air mass is going to continue sinking further south, even without a particular threat for precipitation. This will drive an inactive cold front through Kansas City overnight, leading to a cooler day tomorrow before a stout, clear area of high pressure moves into the middle of the country.
Tomorrow – Mostly cloudy, High 36, Low 25
New Years Day – Sunny, High 37, Low 20

TWC: Tomorrow – Mostly cloudy skies early will become partly cloudy later in the day. High 39, Low 28
New Years Day – Some clouds in the morning will give way to mainly sunny skies for the afternoon. High 40, Low 27

AW: Tomorrow – Colder with times of clouds and sun High 37, Low 29
New Years Day – Mostly sunny High 41, Low 25

NWS: Tomorrow – Partly sunny,  High 36, Low 28
New Years Day – Sunny, High 37, Low 25

WB: Tomorrow – Partly Sunny, High 35, Low 29
New Years Day – Sunny, High 36, Low 26

WN: Tomorrow – Partly cloudy, High 37, Low 28
New Years Day – Mostly Sunny, High 37, Low 25

CLI: Tomorrow – Overcast, High 37, Low 27
New Years Day – Sunny, High 50, Low 25

Those lows in the V-W forecast are a bit lower because we used the information out of the Kansas City airport, which is well outside the city center. Check out the forecast for KCTV-5. There is a distinct focus on the Chiefs football game this weekend.

Lincoln, Nebraska to Kansas City, Missouri

You can’t get much ore “middle of the country” than this, can you? Lincoln and Kansas City are less than 3 1/12 hours apart by car, and 195 miles if you check the odometer. The drive will drill down to a nice, tidy 60mph for a pretty brief Wednesday drive.

Lincoln, Nebraska

The real show in the country is an area of low pressure moving through the southeastern US, but a slow moving inverted trough will dangle north into Missouri through most of Wednesday morning. Guidance universally hangs on to a batch of snow between Nebraska City, Nebraska and St. Joseph, Missouri, which accounts for a sizeable chunk of our route. The day will start clear and will end on a positive note, but the middle of the drive will be slower than I’m sure we would prefer.

Kansas City, Missouri