Snow Chances Fading & an Earthquake

If this keeps up, we just may be able to break the record for the lowest amount of snow in KC history. For the last about 5 days or so, there was the look on the models that maybe something a bit more interesting could happen next week. For the last 24 hours though, that look has mostly disappeared. While the last few days of February and first couple of days of March may be a bit of a roller-coaster for temperatures, and yes maybe even a couple of below average days are possible, whatever cold airmasses move into the area probably will not linger too long before moving along their merry little way.

While there may be storms moving through the Midwest, there is really nothing decent looking that would do anything more than give us brief opportunities of snow on the back side of the storm as it moves away. I’ve been thinking for the last month that there would be one storm that would give us a run for the money, but looking at the data this AM and for the last couple of days, it’s getting harder and harder for me to imagine something like that even happening.

I’ve had numerous people ask me if I’m OK with that, an amazing lack of snow this winter. For those who know me on the air, you’re probably surprised that I’m not clawing at the walls at this point because I really like snow, and the incredible challenges of snow forecasting. Strangely though I have been OK with all this. Odds are it’s mostly because of what’s happened over the past couple of winters before this one. Getting about 80″ of snow in the last 2 winters will do that to a person I guess. Now IF we hadn’t gotten all that snow, I would be one unhappy camper now. In reality though I’m not and I’m good with it.

I’ve also said to others that IF by the 25th of the month we were still nicely short of the record, and IF there was nothing really on the way for us that looked intriguing to me that I would say, let’s just go for it. Let’s get that low winter snow record which stands @ 4.5″. I’m less than a week away from jumping on board that train to record-dom.

We’ve had so many days of milder than average weather (more on that tomorrow) that it really has been unbelievable.

Yesterday’s storm was pretty impressive. The winds were the big deal with it here, and since the winds aloft were so strong, the convection that the storm produced help to mix those stronger winds to the ground, as a result some localized areas reported 45-55 MPH winds. There was also some small hail as well. The hail was more frequent across southern KS and OK. There were some severe weather reports down there as well.

There were also strong winds generated by the storm itself across OK, not related to the T/storms that were moving through that area. Here is a map showing the highest wind gusts in OK yesterday. Click on it to make it larger.

There were some 60 MPH winds down there. Also a lot of blowing dust running around

There was an earthquake earlier this AM near Carbondale, IL. in SE MO. It measured a 4.0 as a matter of fact and was felt across parts of MO, IL, IN and KY I think.

It occurred around 4AM and here is a map showing who felt it.

That’s about it for the day. have a good Tuesday and remember tomorrow we make a nice run towards 70°!

Joe