What causes stationary fronts and how they impact our weather

When talking about stationary fronts, it's basically a game of tug of war. Cold air sits on one side of a region, and warmer less dense air on the other side. Both fronts are equally matched and stay in place, often times lasting multiple days before one side budges.

A prime example of a stationary front occurred just earlier today in the last 24 hours.

A stationary front located just off to the northwest of mid-Missouri was in place near Kansas City extending northeast. This afternoon the stationary front started to free up, eventually allowing those showers and storms to continue to push through the area.

Stationary fronts are known to lead to a few things for those underneath them or around them. Down at the surface, we typically see a pretty abrupt change in the wind direction just a short distance either towards the cold air mass or towards the warm air mass.

At the front, a lot of times you're not going to see a change in the direction at all. Many times this, could bring repeated weather conditions. On the back side of the cooler air mass meeting the warmer air mass, it could lead to cooler conditions and cloudy skies. On the other side of that towards the warm air mass sector, you could see some repeated patterns of rain or snow depending on the time of the year, that could last multiple days at a time.