KANSAS CITY, Mo. — It’s turning into a delightful day in the region as the lower clouds and fog are dissipating revealing extensive snow cover up across northern Platte County, Missouri, and north/west as a result of the weekend snow system. That generally gave the metro a dusting to about an inch or so of sticking snow overnight on Saturday into early Sunday morning.

Parts of northern Missouri hit the snow jackpot, with some areas seeing nearly 8 inches of snow. Very impressive indeed.

In the last blog I wrote, I was mentioning a “tell” that might develop on radar. It did towards the 36 highway corridor, where a band of steady and at times heavy wet snow developed. I wasn’t expecting 6-8 inches in isolated locations, but still an impressive event.

As the game was happening and the snow was pouring down, about 50 miles north we just missed out from having heavy snow, similar to what happened in the Buffalo game yesterday. A pour down at Arrowhead was just 50 miles away.

Now our next system threatens and it will be another close call for KC to be hit. Will it too be 50 miles away, or will we have the chance of seeing something more?

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Kansas City Forecast:

Today: Mostly sunny and milder with highs 40-45 degrees.

Tonight: Fair initially, then clouds move in towards daybreak. Lows in the mid-to-upper 20s. Some fog is possible as well.

Tomorrow: Mostly cloudy with thicker clouds later in the day. Highs in the 40-degree range.

Tomorrow night: Snow develops later in the evening. Perhaps a brief period of rain/snow, but overall snowy. Accumulations will be lighter northwest of Kansas City and somewhat heavier in the metro and south. 1-4 inches is on the table from northwest Kansas City to the southeast Kansas metro area. The higher totals are a bit suspect right now.

Wednesday: Any snow ends during the morning. Variable clouds and chilly with highs in the low to mid-30s.

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Discussion:

So how close did we come to a big “surprise” snowstorm on Saturday? As mentioned, 50 miles close.

Here is the data. The yellow is an area of 6 inches or more.

Here is a closer view of the data:

And a zoom into a couple of counties that did better:

So close to KC, and that would’ve been plastering the region during the game… wow.

The morning visible satellite picture shows the snow cover, north of the red line mostly:

So one system was a VERY close call to heavily affecting the metro area.

Now what about the second system?

Next chance for snow in KC

This one will be passing south of the region, but there is a caveat to this. Let’s set it up.

Where is the system now?

It’s in Arizona and it’s a rather strong system as well. Snow is falling in Colorado and parts of New Mexico and Arizona this afternoon. You can see it spinning on top of Phoenix, Arizona.

This system can be tracked better by going up to about 18,000 feet or so.

The system goes from southeast Arizona tonight to El Paso, Texas, tomorrow. Then near Dallas tomorrow night and then near Fort Smith, Arkansas, late tomorrow night before heading northeast.

It’s not a bad track. Not perfect, but not bad. Remember last week it was going to be somewhat farther south. It’s trended north a bit. We’re not “in it,” but we’re closer and that does raise some red flags for this.

The main issue is not so much the temperatures. If there is any rain, it would be brief late tomorrow evening. The answer to this being another ho-hum snow or something more problematic is whether the northwestern side of the storm have a more widespread snowfield or will it be more tightened up and more concentrated towards the path of the upper-level system itself.

Typically, this should be a tighter radar future look with us truly on the northwestern side of things, and it may turn out that way in the end. Certainly some data supports that. If that happens, then that is a dusting to 2-inch snow for the metro from north to south in KC.

That again is a possibility, but I do have concerns. The system will be very dynamic and sometimes in these situations, the precipitation that develops closer to the core of the upper-level storm can get flung farther towards the north than usual. This can increase the amount of snow locally, especially for the Interstate 35 corridor region and southeast.

The morning data does show this potential. Just looking at the total precipitation into later Wednesday, most of any accumulations will be done by mid-morning in KC:

There might be a brief amount of time that we are fighting some rain or melting snow. Temperatures will be near 40 tomorrow and may not be dropping fast tomorrow night either. But in time, the snow starts to stick, especially on the usual exposed/elevated surfaces such as car tops, bridges, overpasses, decks etc.

Where are my thoughts right now: I’m sort of in the mindset of 1 to 3 or 4 inches from the north side of KC to the south side of KC. There is something in there that bothers me on the upside of this storm potential, so I want to give myself a bit more leeway, especially from I-70 south for higher-side totals.

There should be some melting for a few hours, so lets say there is little accumulation into midnight. Then it should start sticking better and faster. The accumulating snow window really only goes through 6 a.m. or so. Then things taper off during the rush hour on Wednesday.

There is some potential for a snow day on Wednesday for some districts.

Will 50 miles again be a difference to the have nots and have snows? Perhaps. Except this time, areas farther north get much less, while KC southwards is more in play.

Finally, be prepared for a surge of some pretty darn cold air for the game Sunday. Lower teens for the late afternoon, with the potential of near-zero wind chills. I think the game will be dry though. Can’t promise we don’t get some wintry weather later Saturday or early Sunday.

So this is what winter does around here.

The feature photo comes from Peggy Jane Farmer.

Joe