While Joe is enjoying his first taste of winter in Colorado, we are on the eastern side of this monster storm and we're going to get rain, rain, and more rain for the rest of your Thursday.  We saw a first round earlier today, then some scattered showers around noon in the metro...but the heaviest and more widespread rain was to the west in eastern Kansas.  Due to the expected heavy rain, the National Weather Service has issued a flash flood watch for most of the Missouri side of the viewing area.

For the rest of the afternoon we'll see rain increasing in coverage across not only the Kansas City metro, but also through the state of Missouri as well.  Rainfall totals so far have been anywhere from a few hundreths down near Lake of the Ozarks to around an inch and a half in Kirksville to almost two inches in parts of eastern Kansas.  Before all is said and one, totals will range from a mere 0.5 inches up to 3 inches.

The rain will taper off shortly before midnight, but I'm not expecting us to clear out until sometime tomorrow.  In fact, Friday could be rather dreary with lots of clouds and temperatures back below average, hovering around 50 degrees during the afternoon hours.  This storm is very large and will take it's sweet time moving away from the Central Plains, hence the reason I think we'll be slow to clear out tomorrow behind the actual front.

The weekend shows some promise of nicer days ahead!  We should be drying out all weekend with a gradual warm up occuring as well.  For all you trick or treaters, it will be chilly but dry for your door to door knocking!  Also, this Saturday evening before you go to sleep make sure to set your clocks back an hour.  Daylight Saving Time ends this weekend and we gain that extra hour of sleep (woohoo!)  Also, DST is a great reminder to check your smoke detector batteries as well!

Have a great day everyone, and stay dry!

-Karli