Lake effect snow, some freezing drizzle, and a preview to Thanksgiving week!

How lake effect snow sets up

The pictures out of Buffalo, NY are just incredible. It's hard for me to even imagine what it would be like going through such an event. Even if Kansas had half of the snow they had there, we would have some huge problems on our hands. You've heard of lake effect snow, but how does it happen? The two main ingredients are cold air and warm water. When the Arctic air moves over the warmer lake water, you get the enhancement of snow downwind of the lakes. The water temperature can be 20-30 degrees warmer than the surrounding air. What is a challenge is forecasting the individual bands of heavy snow (where some places get 40-60 inches, and 5 miles away, it may just be 4 or 5 inches)

Friday morning

We could see a few hours of some light freezing drizzle early Friday. This will not be a major ice accumulation event. Most of us will warm into the 40s by early Friday afternoon, so if there are any problems, it should be limited to the hours of 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. and after that, we should be in good shape. One computer model doesn't bring the drizzle in until after we've warmed above 32 degrees.

Weekend rainfall will track south and east of Kansas

The weekend storm is mainly going to pass us to the south. Heavier rains (on the order of 1-2 inches) will fall in Oklahoma, northeast Texas, and Arkansas. Once again, we are just on the edge of a decent rain making storm. The moisture would sure be nice to have, but it's tracking too far south for it to do much good around here.

Just a heads up for next week. Another BIG change is going to take place in the Wednesday/Thursday time frame. It's a very busy week for Thanksgiving and we look for another surge of some Arctic air to move south. Might even see a little snow too. Details to come as we get closer!