Winter storm update - timing & just how much moisture will we get

Just one week after the 20+" of snow in western Kansas, another significant snow is coming into the Plains with some rain, mostly snow, wind, and very low wind chills. Even if you are not excited about the snow, just be glad we aren't going to get what areas south of here will have - ICE. And plenty of it. This will be a mix of sleet and some freezing rain, but power outages might be common from Texas to Arkansas and beyond. Going to be some real travel headaches in the next few days. 

At this point, there probably won't be too much change in the going snowfall forecast. This is a slow-moving system setting up in the southwest, and then it ejects across Oklahoma Thursday and moves out completely by Friday. What's different about this storm is it has a connection to Gulf moisture, so the precipitation will be widespread. 

Latest snowfall forecast looks like this:

Given the temperatures that we are forecasting while most of the snow is falling, we will be closer to a 15"=1" of liquid moisture. I don't think we will actually get an inch of liquid moisture, but a .50 to maybe .75" certainly is possible. That's more than some have had since last October. 

Latest timing details:

Snow should begin first in south central and eastern Kansas as the moisture lifts to the north and northeast. Some of this will be heavy, and roads conditions will start deteriorating even before daybreak Wednesday.

Western Kansas sees snow later:

Should be developing after midnight through the west. 

Much of Kansas gets snow Wednesday morning to early afternoon:

Wednesday evening:

Snow has come to an end farther north (north of I70 mainly), but will continued farther south. There is a second wave of snow that will try to push north into southern Kansas as nightfall arrives Wednesday. This will lead to more accumulation, perhaps as much as 1-3 inches additional on top of what we already have.

There may still be some flurries on Thursday - but safe to expect the winter storm is pretty much over by that point in time. 

The last 6"+ of snow for Wichita came on January 1, 2021 with the New Years Day storm. That left 6.5" officially for the city. Then you have to go back to 2014 to find an 8" snow that happened in February. Safe to say that a big snow (more than 6 inches or so) are few and far between, but they do happen. This one coming in might set a daily snow record for Wichita, but probably won't make it into the top 5 biggest snows for the city. Those records are shown below. We would need to top 11 inches of snow before we start looking at a top 10 winter storms on record. 

Stay warm and stay safe.