042
FXUS63 KEAX 020837
AFDEAX

Area Forecast Discussion
National Weather Service Kansas City/Pleasant Hill MO
237 AM CST Tue Dec 2 2025

.KEY MESSAGES...

- Milder Weather Next Few Days

- Possible Light Precipitation Northern and Northeast Missouri
  Wednesday

- Overall Cold, Slightly Warmer Today, But Very Cold End of Week
  Again

&&

.DISCUSSION...
Issued at 236 AM CST Tue Dec 2 2025

Trough axis that brought Monday`s snowfall has moved east of the
Mississippi River overnight. Mid to upper-level flow is still
northwesterly, which will maintain cold air through the early
Tuesday morning hours. There is another trough just off the coast of
the Pacific Northwest Region, but this is helping to promote a
modest ridge axis in the Northern High Plains this morning. This has
led to an AVA regime across most of the Central CONUS and is
providing reinforcement of the surface anticyclone. Lingering
stratiform cloud deck is starting to deteriorate with this
subsidence and is pushing eastward. For the very short term forecast
through 14z this morning, will need to watch fog and freezing fog
potential where this stratus clears out. However, drier air has been
filtering in, which may inhibit fog development. For the remainder
of Tuesday, the Pacific Northwest trough gradually erodes the AVA
regime, and deamplifies the modest mid-level ridge axis. By the
afternoon, mid-level flow will be zonal, though may have decent
velocity to it with a stronger height gradient, as well as colder
air from the Central Canadian Prairie Provinces helping to
strengthen that gradient. A lobe of vorticity is progged to eject
across the Front Range and toward the OK/TX panhandle region later
this afternoon, and will attempt to develop a surface cyclone there,
while pushing the anticyclone in our area eastward. This will turn
our low-level flow south to southwesterly through the afternoon, and
provide modest WAA, especially for west-central Missouri and eastern
Kansas. Some model guidance suggests our afternoon highs will hit
the upper 30s this afternoon as it occurs. However, varying degrees
of model snow depth has created a decent spread in output solutions,
and the bias corrected inputs into some of the blends may be playing
a role in that. With the fresh snowpack on the ground, with a lot of
areas seeing 2 to 3 inches, would expect the lower range of
temperatures for this afternoon. Therefore, have trended slightly
below the NBM 50th percentile for highs this afternoon, especially
western Missouri and eastern Kansas. Most locations though may still
be able to reach air temperatures above freezing for a few hours
this afternoon for the southwestern third of the forecast area.
North-central and northeast Missouri may stay below 32F today.

Wednesday, weather activity is not expected to be notable for our
region. However, large scale synoptic pattern across the CONUS will
have multiple features that will play a role in how things progress
through the end of the week. The aforementioned Pacific Northwest
trough digs into the southern Rockies region, while a deep closed
low system sits between the Northern Great Lakes and Hudson Bay.
This sets up strong mid to upper-level northwesterly flow for the
Central CONUS, and will push a strong surface anticyclone and Arctic
Airmass southeastward. With the preceding modest WAA from Tuesday,
this will setup a baroclinic zone, with the northwesterly flow
pushing this boundary as a cold front. Most soundings are showing a
fairly moisture deprived troposphere as this moves through. However,
convergence along this front will be quite strong, and may produce
some light snow in north-central and northeastern Missouri. Most of
the deterministic global scale NWP is dry with respect to QPF.
Respective ensembles indicate some low end potential for detectable
precipitation, which based on the temperatures would be all snow.
00z HREF depicts few hundredths of an inch of QPF, which would
translate to a few tenths of an inch of snow. For now, forecast will
include slight chance POPs for north-central Missouri. Slightly
stronger forcing will be located just outside of our forecast area
in northeast Missouri, primarily east and northeast of Kirksville.
The main story with this airmass though will be the return to very
cold temperatures, with our northeast counties perhaps only seeing
highs in the upper teens, with upper 20s elsewhere. This may result
in wind chill values between 10 below to 15 below zero from Harrison
County MO eastward to Adair and Schuyler Counties.

For the weekend, another trough will move across the Central CONUS
and provide forcing for some precipitation. Current guidance
depictions favor our northeast and eastern counties with this, as
well as better ensemble probabilities for detectable precipitation
for central Missouri and eastern Missouri. Temperatures over the
weekend into the start of next week fluctuate between the mid 20s
and upper 30s for afternoon highs, with lows generally in the teens.
Inner-quartile spread amongst NBM and other ensemble systems though
is fairly large, given the passage of multiple waves. Strongest
signal for the coldest temperatures are kept more for northeast and
east-central Missouri. A westward shift though could change
that.

&&

.AVIATION /06Z TAFS THROUGH 06Z WEDNESDAY/...
Issued at 1125 PM CST Mon Dec 1 2025

MVFR stratus deck is slowly moving off to the east, and should
be clear of the KC metro and STJ terminals between 08z-10z
Tuesday morning. Watching the potential for fog on the backside
of the stratus deck, but unsure if cooling in clear skies will
allow for fog development. The fresh snowpack may impact this.
Winds remain less than 10kts for most of 06z TAF period.

&&

.EAX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES...
MO...None.
KS...None.

&&

$$

DISCUSSION...Krull
AVIATION...Krull