Active weather this week, but how rough will it be?

Hope everyone had a great weekend. An active weather pattern is showing up this week with a series of storm systems approaching from the west. And in all reality, it's something that may continue into next week too, but how significant will the storms be?

First chance for snow tonight:

This isn't anything to be concerned about. A stray flurry or two might clip southern Kansas, but accumulations should stay well south of our immediate area. Models are suggesting several inches of snow may fall in New Mexico and and parts of southern Colorado.

Second chance for moisture Wednesday:

Again, based on the track of the main low pressure system, this will again be another system that is a miss to the south (which has happened a bunch this winter). The system gets wrapped up Wednesday afternoon and areas along and southeast of the Turnpike might have a rain/snow mix for part of the afternoon. Temperatures will likely be above freezing, so I'm not concerned about road conditions being a problem. Heavier rains will soak eastern Oklahoma, Missouri, and Arkansas.

Next strong cold front: this will come through late Wednesday night or early Thursday. It's nothing we haven't seen already this winter, but highs will probably slip back to the 30s for at least one day. Then a rebound will take place heading toward the weekend.

We do have more active weather lined up from the weekend into early next week, but none of these future storms really have the indications of being anything more than light sprinkles or flurries at this time.

And if you are counting, we are less than 40 DAYS to spring!!

Have a great day.

The wild ride in February continues

Our first week of February is nearly behind us and what a wild ride with record setting warmth last weekend and now, it seems like winter has a firm grip on the Plains.

This may be a hard pill to swallow, but look at the following maps. The next several weeks look colder than normal (by varying degrees of course). There isn't much hope of getting back to 70 anytime soon, so 50s will have to do for now. In another few weeks, our normal highs will jump to 50.

So here's the outlook for next week:

We are forecasting a storm, which essentially has been on our radar (no pun intended) now for roughly a week. The timing originally looked like Tuesday, but the last couple of days have shifted our confidence toward it being a Wednesday system. We might have a brief round of sprinkles on Tuesday, but the bulk of the moisture comes right in the middle of the week. And it could be heavy too, with the eastern 1/3 of Kansas possibly getting another inch of moisture. 

This first image is for Tuesday afternoon when both systems are forming in the west. You can clearly see two areas, one in the Northwest and another coming through the desert. They should eventually combine for one large system in the Plains.

As the moisture begins to wrap up and depart from the Plains, we get hit with a VERY strong cold front again during the second half of next week. This looks COLD - every bit as cold as the last big blast we saw come through. So winter will be hard to fight off in the coming weeks, but the month of February has looked cold front the start. 

The front then leads us into the outlook shown below. We don't stand much of a chance of warming up for any great length of time until the end of the month. Even then, it doesn't look like 70s at this point in time.

Two rounds of snow - and a potential bigger storm next week

It seems unfair to have such a fantastic spring tease last weekend and then we get slammed back to winter with cold and snow. But there isn't anything we can do to change it and February can be a very cold month. Groundhog said early spring, but as I mentioned in the last post, I expect this to be a cold month.

Round #1 of snow - today (Tuesday):

This will be a light and powdery snow for most of the area because the temperatures will be so cold. It definitely won't be the slushy stuff we had the last couple of weeks. North winds will be blowing the snow around, and we should be (after dark anyway) tapering down to light flurries. Heaviest accumulations (up to 3 inches in spots) will mostly be across central and western Kansas.

Round #2 - arriving Wednesday:

This wave of snow should come up from the south as a large storm organizes south in Texas and Oklahoma, then begins to move to the northeast. Kansas will end up on the west side of it all, but as it looks now, we should be close enough to catch some accumulations. Heaviest amounts will end up in southeast Kansas, but even areas along the Turnpike may catch an inch or two.

Chiefs Parade in KC on Wednesday - looks snowy

Dress warm & allow extra time getting around because snow will cover the KC metro area throughout the afternoon. They are expecting over a million people to attend, so traffic could be a headache, especially with some snow coming down at a pretty good clip Wednesday afternoon.

Are we headed for an even bigger storm next week?
It looks like something is trying to form around the middle of next week. This could be a Wednesday or Thursday (Feb. 12-13) storm.  We have several sets of data that we rely on to make our forecasts, but two that get the most traction are the GFS and European models and they are suggesting a storm. The magnitude and details aren't very clear yet, but here's a snapshot of what we are looking at toward the middle of the week. If that system can organize and move up through our area, we'll be looking at widespread rain and snow. We are still a week away, so let's see what future model runs show as we get closer.