There are actually two chances this week of seeing snow flakes. One is Wednesday night and the other is Friday, but in a winter where snow is at a premium, both don’t look too terribly impressive at this point despite looking very impressive in the atmosphere.

Regardless, another very warm day for early February is on the way today after very mild conditions over the weekend, especially Sunday.

It’s been one weird winter around here, and as we start a more active pattern for the next couple of weeks or so, there really isn’t any nasty cold air coming that has any lasting power.

There will be some below average days mixing in with the milder days, but any repeat of what happened before Christmas to Christmas isn’t in the cards at this point.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Forecast

Today: Mostly cloudy, very windy and warm with highs well into the 60s.The record is 70° set back in 1904. We missed the record of 67° yesterday by 2°

Tonight: There may be a few showers SE of the Metro with a cold front coming through. Best chances are Harrisonville/Paola Southeastwards. They will be quick hitters and last for less than 30 minutes. Lows in the mid-30s

Tomorrow: Partly sunny and pleasant. Not as warm but still above average with highs in the 50° range

Wednesday: Some rain is possible… there is a chance toward night of some snowflakes mixing in. Temperatures 40-45° with falling evening temperatures

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Discussion

For snow lovers, winters in these parts over the last 10 years haven’t exactly been too great. Last February we did get a couple of decent snows, and it’s not as if we get a ton of snow here during a winter to begin with, only 18″ or so… but jeez.

Here we are at 4.7″, we’ve been there since January 24-25th when we had 2.4″ of wet snow. I’m not overly encouraged about this week although maybe Friday can add a bit to those totals.

The year, granted almost 40 days old at this point, has been a mild one.

Since meteorological winter began on December 1st:

Note six others this century, including the last three winters in a row, are all above us… numbers 16, 17 and 18.

Not helpful for snow lovers.

You can still get snow storms in mild winters. Last February on the 17th I think we had that 6-10″ Metro snow, but we were essentially <50 miles from getting flurries. KCI had 7″ while St Joe had flurries, so regional snowstorms are tough around these parts.

There is a potent system that is going down toward El Paso later tomorrow. It doesn’t look like much on the satellite pictures yet, but that will gradually change over the next 24 hours. Aloft though it does have some punch to it, and we can see it more clearly going up to about 20,000 feet… the 500 mb level and track it.

Notice how it drops toward El Paso, TX then starts coming out toward the region on Wednesday and Wednesday night. As that happens, another piece is dropping into the Plains later Thursday.

So what will that do for us here on the ground? Well, we should get at least some rain from this, although not a ton.

As the first piece goes by it may try to chill down the atmosphere in spots enough to generate some snow flakes. The strength and the dynamics of the storm can do that sometimes.

The NAM model in particular is very bullish on these prospects Wednesday evening. It though is sort of on its own island. While other models are showing this potential, they just don’t go to the extreme as the NAM and since there is a lot of warm air (above 32°) ahead of this.

It truly is a needle in a haystack leap of faith to jump aboard right now. Some flakes maybe, but the NAM is doing this…

The second system coming in behind the Wednesday system can be watched as well, but that will struggle to some extent because the first system is going to strip a lot of moisture from the atmosphere so that the second system doesn’t have a lot to work with, despite the fact that it’s going to be strengthening as it comes toward the State Line region.

We can’t win for losing for snow around here. We have a storm and it’s too warm, we have a colder storm and the atmosphere is worked over from the first storm.

IF we didn’t have the first storm, there may be a chance to get something a bit more noteworthy, but alas, this isn’t the case. We may get some accumulations, but they don’t look overly impressive.

I guess we may have some potential slick spots Friday morning.

The feature photo comes from Kari Taylor. We’ve had some nice halos lately. Halos are caused when the moons light or the suns light goes through ice crystals. The light refracts or changes its angle when it enters one side of a crystal and comes out the other side.

Joe