January heat wave will be followed by a storm

Thanks for checking out the blog. If you are reading this for the first time, thanks for giving it a try. I do my best to keep you ahead of what we are seeing in the forecast models, both short and longer range.

Cold Now:

This latest cold snap covers almost all of the country, including the deep South. For the second time this year, places that don't normally get much snow are seeing it again. Look at this picture from Southside, AL (just outside of Birmingham). It's not much, but those areas don't normally see much snow. And huge flakes yesterday in Huntsville. These places average about .5-1" of snow yearly. And this is their 2nd good storm this winter. 

Warming Returns to Kansas:

We will see a big jump in temperatures for the remainder of the week. It's a little hard to imagine 60° weather after having so much cold weather this week. But it's a west-southwest wind that does the trick. Anytime you see the wind coming from the south, it almost always means a jump in temperatures.

Thursday

Friday

Watching the weekend storm:

Good news - we see a storm on the horizon that (unless something MAJOR changes) should bring rain and snow to the Plains. Bad news - this storm is going to be a huge headache for the recovery efforts in California after the mudslides. They will get hit Friday. 

Based on the track we see now, this area of low pressure should develop and strengthen in the Oklahoma panhandle. It would then track toward Wichita before lifting toward KC. This storm will connect and intercept Gulf of Mexico moisture, so we could see higher snowfall amounts than with any other particular storm this season in the Plains. We still don't know the exact path of the storm (because it hasn't even formed yet), so when it finally begins to move over land into the weekend, we will be able to narrow down our forecast even more. But if you have travel plans this weekend, watch out. This storm could have some very big impacts on Kansas.