354 FXUS63 KICT 241956 AFDICT Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Wichita KS 256 PM CDT Fri Apr 24 2020 .SHORT TERM...(This evening through Monday night) Issued at 249 PM CDT Fri Apr 24 2020 Early this afternoon, a surface low pressure system is currently situated over northern Kansas, with a cold front extending southward across south central Kansas and into central Oklahoma. A stationary front also stretches east of this feature across the northeast portion of the state and past the KC metro area into northern Missouri. Ahead of the cold front in southeast Kansas, lingering moisture in the form of light rain showers from this morning's convection has been somewhat slow to clear, with a prevailing cirrus shield covering much of eastern and northeastern Kansas. However, latest GOES-E meso-sector satellite imagery does show some recovery where the breaks in clouds have occurred, particularly across the southern CWA counties. Early afternoon radar trends show that a line of convection has initiated along the north-south oriented surface trough currently in the vicinity of I-135 in south central Kansas, with the strongest updrafts now located just east of the Wichita metro area and points south where breaks in clouds have allowed instability to increase to modest levels. Mid-level lapse rates in south central Kansas upward of 7C/km could allow some storms to present a marginal hail threat, but wind shear is rather marginal at best. Also of note, the current radar trends seem to be running well ahead of most CAMs as far as timing of storms goes. For the rest of the afternoon and evening, as the convective line pushes east into southeast Kansas, there is expected to be a slight uptick in wind shear and CAPE. This could support a continued or slightly increased marginal threat of hail and a few stronger wind gusts given the cell cluster and linear convective modes throughout the afternoon and early evening. The tornado threat looks low at best given the lower shear and modest CAPE environment, but do feel its worth the mention that a *slight* uptick in storm relative helicity to about 100-200 m^2/s^2 may occur this afternoon in southeast Kansas. Should some sort of localized mesoscale boundary interactions come into play within this environment, it would not be totally unreasonable to see some sort of brief spinner or funnel. To re-iterate, however, this threat overall remains very low. Finally, as the convection moves through this afternoon and evening, brief but very heavy rain may be possible. For more details on this, see the Hydrology section below. Looking ahead to tomorrow, the mid/upper through will move well east of the forecast area. Less cloud cover will allow temperatures to heat up just slightly warmer than today for much of the area. As the previous discussion mentioned, cannot completely rule out some pop-up diurnally driven high base showers during the afternoon given cool temperatures aloft. Some of the short term guidance does hint at this, but still felt that confidence was too low to introduce non- silent PoPs into the forecast at this time. Otherwise, the weekend should be mostly dry with temperatures warming into the 70s area-wide by Sunday. .LONG TERM...(Tuesday through Friday) Issued at 249 PM CDT Fri Apr 24 2020 Models continue to show a short wave moving across mid-America Sunday night into Monday which will re-introduce some chances for precipitation in southern Kansas and Oklahoma. Of note, felt that the default model blend loaded in PoPs much too low for southern and eastern Kansas on Monday given the trends of both GFS and ECMWF as well as other model families. As a result, adjusted up the chances for showers or a storm during the day on Monday. By Tuesday, a more pronounced front/system looks to move through which could bring chances for storms. Early indications are that a few strong/severe storms will be possible, though the finer details are yet to be realized. By the middle to end of the work week next week, things look to dry out and temperatures will remain in the 70s to low 80s each afternoon. && .AVIATION...(For the 18Z TAFS through 18Z Saturday afternoon) Issued at 117 PM CDT Fri Apr 24 2020 A broken line of thunderstorms will progress east across southeast Kansas this afternoon, as a potent upper shortwave and associated cold front progresses east. While widespread severe weather is not expected, the strongest activity will be capable of 50-60 mph winds, dime-quarter size hail, frequent lightning, and heavy rain. TSRA should move east of ICT by 19-20z, with TSRA reaching CNU by around 21z or so. In wake of this broken line of storms, lingering showers with possibly a few embedded lightning strikes will persist through the evening across central and eastern KS. Gusty northwest winds will persist well through the evening as well. && .HYDROLOGY... Issued at 249 PM CDT Fri Apr 24 2020 For the rest of the afternoon and into the overnight hours as storms progress eastward across the forecast area, very heavy rain can be expected at times. Already this afternoon, visibilities have dropped as low as 1/2 mile or so in pockets of the heaviest rainfall where rainfall rates of roughly 1.5" an hour have been observed. In analyzing the flooding threat for southeast Kansas through tonight, precipitable water values of roughly 1.0-1.25 inches or so throughout the eastern half of Kansas are generally expected to be above the 75th percentile when compared to climatology. Taking a look at model forecast soundings, the vertical profile is certainly plenty moist with low and mid RH greater than 70% throughout the evening. These factors, when combined with knowledge of the heavy rainfall rates already observed early this afternoon, will continue to support a brief heavy rain and perhaps localized or areal flooding threat in southeast Kansas this evening through about midnight or so. On the other hand, however, there will be some limiting factors that should prevent more widespread flooding or much in the way of flash flooding. Despite the moist vertical profile and PW values, both the Corfidi vectors and LCL-EL cloud layer mean winds will be fairly high, and given the mean storm motion the heaviest rain should be fairly progressive. 18z Flash Flood Guidance from ABRFC is still roughly 2 to 2.5 inches across much of southeast Kansas and current river stage forecasts based on the QPF are not anticipated to approach flood stage at this time. Therefore, opted out of issuing a flood watch for southeast Kansas this evening and overnight. Through collaboration with NWS Springfield, certainly see why one would be warranted further east, however, given the increasing terrain considerations and the fact that recent rainfall has been higher across southwest Missouri this week. && .PRELIMINARY POINT TEMPS/POPS... Wichita-KICT 45 69 44 74 / 30 0 0 0 Hutchinson 43 69 42 74 / 20 0 0 0 Newton 43 68 43 73 / 40 0 0 0 ElDorado 44 68 44 74 / 50 10 0 0 Winfield-KWLD 45 70 44 74 / 30 0 0 0 Russell 41 69 39 77 / 20 10 0 0 Great Bend 40 69 40 76 / 20 10 0 0 Salina 43 69 42 75 / 30 10 0 0 McPherson 42 68 42 74 / 30 10 0 0 Coffeyville 50 69 44 74 / 80 10 0 0 Chanute 48 68 44 72 / 80 10 0 0 Iola 47 68 44 72 / 80 10 0 0 Parsons-KPPF 49 68 45 73 / 80 10 0 0 && .ICT WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES... None. && $$ SHORT TERM...TAV LONG TERM...TAV AVIATION...ADK HYDROLOGY...TAV