Posted: Updated:
At the rate we’re going…we may combine all of winter weather into one week in KC and that week potentially is next week. There is some good news for non-winter fans though…we should see warmer air move back into the area by the end of the month and to start February.
2 different systems will become problematic here…the winter component to the system coming on Monday may take different forms before switching to accumulating snow and the winter component to the Wednesday system should be all snow. Both have a strong chance of bringing accumulating snows to the KC area.
We’ve had officially about 4.3″ of snow so far this winter…we may double that winter total by the end of next week and then some perhaps.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Forecast:
Today: Partly cloudy and colder with highs in the mid 30s
Tonight: Fair and seasonable (for a change) with lows 15-20°
Saturday: Increasing clouds and chilly with highs in the upper 30s. Breezy as well adding to the chill.
Sunday: Light rain/mist/drizzle likely at times. There should be breaks though every so often. Rain will increase more at night. Temperatures near 40° but chillier for the game.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Discussion:
I’m taking a few days off…so I won’t be back on the air till Tuesday but the blog will continue with the active weather on the way…what can I say…it’s what I do!
Yesterday was sensational. A rare combination of mild air and little wind. That is challenging to see a big warm-up with that. Usually you need to have a lot of wind to pop to 60° around here during January. That wasn’t the case yesterday. Some areas had a 40° warm-up…impressive.
That was yesterday…today the cooler north winds are here and temperatures will be more typical for January. The average for this time of the year is in the upper 30s for highs…that is about where we’ll be today and tomorrow…somewhere in the 35-40° range.
Sunday starts the active time…to be fair though…there isn’t going to be a LOT of rain on Sunday…it will be a more or less drizzly/misty/showery type day with temperatures just sort of in the 40° range. It may rain a bit at times during the game…it may be dry for other times.
There isn’t really a great trigger for a lot of rain during the day on Sunday. The best chances may be in the AM…with occasional lulls in the PM. There aren’t any strong waves or anything coming into the area…it’s just a broad area of lift in a saturated atmosphere. That will trigger areas of light rain in the region. So the amounts may only be around 1/10″ or so…but again it might just be a nuisance for the game itself.
The bulk of this storm comes very late Sunday night into Monday. Initially a decent rain increases then as the main wave comes into the Plains, the lift really increases rapidly. We’ll have to track the wave and exactly where it goes…because as the atmosphere gets colder through the morning Monday…whatever is falling changes over to potentially heavy snow.
There is a path to repeating what happened on New Years Day with this…with perhaps a tick up in the snow totals compared to that…and we may be setting up for 2-5″ of snow on Monday depending on IF we get a quicker changeover and less mix on Monday morning.
Timing this out is a bit tricky…the AM Rush may be impacted by wintery weather or it could switchover right afterwards…that remains to be seen. Right now the 9AM-12PM window seems to have the best chance of getting the switch to happen.
Model data does indeed show a strong wave coming into the Plains but the wave will be getting a bit ragged as this happens and then will be accelerating away from the region so I’m not sure how long we can maintain accumulating snows locally…but 3-6 hours worth seems very doable before things wind down in the later afternoon.
The ensemble models are getting a bit more bullish for snow…although this data doesn’t handle the whole transition to snow outputs well.
Here are the EURO ensembles from the overnight data.
and the GFS members.
There are some pretty bullish GFS models
So there is certainly potential for 2-5″ on Monday depending on the length of time that the atmosphere will allow decent snow rates.
Then another system comes on Wednesday next week. That too may be a decent snow-maker locally…perhaps several more inches adding on to what we get ono Monday so a possible snow on top of snow set-up which doesn’t happen that often around here these days.
So how about that…nice little shot of winter weather. Oh and I mentioned the warm-up to finish the month. Let’s just say that by the end on Wednesday next week we have 3-6″ of snow on the ground. It will take a couple of days to melt that off…but take a look at the 5 day average from NEXT Friday onwards to the early part of February.
That’s some warm air coming back in. The GFS ensembles are actually even warmer and the ensembles tend to dampen the big warm-ups…so the potential is there for another run well into the 50s, or higher heading towards the start of the new month.
This has been one strange winter. The lack of arctic outbreaks really is becoming amazing to NOT see. There are no signs of any arctic air really getting into the pattern for the next 10-14 days. we’ll see what happens after that though.
Our feature photo is from Cathy Stueckemann out towards Basehor, KS
Another update tomorrow by lunch.
Joe
