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KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Quick blog for you today as I’m feeling a bit so-so this morning but am getting better this afternoon.

Another snow system is likely to impact the area Wednesday night into Thursday morning. This will be another measurable snow. And while it won’t be a lot, it will mess up the morning commute on Thursday, and it will be connected to some bitterly cold air again.

The good news is that everything is moving along so quickly that the cold air will be gone to start the weekend… before another chilly air mass come our way.

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Forecast:

Tonight: Fair and not too cold with lows in the upper 20s.

Tomorrow: Fair skies and milder as highs approach 50°. Windy as well with gusts to 30 mph.

Tomorrow night: The cold front comes through after midnight or so. By daybreak, back into the teens.

Wednesday: Increasing afternoon clouds and cold! Highs around 25°. Blustery too. Wind chill factors in the single digits.

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Discussion:

Man… you’re going to need a scorecard for these temperatures.

Here is the GFS idea:

That fast warmup on Saturday may be real too. Things are moving along so quickly that the colder air moves in and out fast. We quickly return to southwest flow at the surface, and the warm air returns from the south as fast as the cold air comes in from the north.

The next shot of arctic air that moves in comes early Wednesday morning. Then we wait on a disturbance coming down in the flow from the west-northwest. These disturbances coming out of the northeast Pacific Ocean area are known for producing quick-hitting snows when the atmosphere is set up for it. And it appears that unlike the past weekend when we were fighting sleet for awhile, this time this should be all snow.

The issue is how much do we squeeze out: Data continues to be pretty uniform showing about 1/10 to 2/10 of liquid which would translate to about 1-2 (or 3 on the high side) inches of snow. That seems reasonable based on the direction the disturbances are coming towards.

EURO tracking the disturbances at 18,000 feet.

These disturbances generate lift in the atmosphere and while they may not last long…there are some signals for favorable lift in a very cold atmosphere aloft. That is very favorable for getting fast moving bands of moderate snow to fall. The saving grace is that the bands move along at a decent pace so that they don’t reside over an area for that long. The thing though is that there can be some enhanced totals in these skinny bands. So I do wonder if there might be a bit of upside to the snow to around 3 inches or so in specific areas where the bands are lasting a bit longer.

The timing of the snow arrival: light at first is Wednesday evening before midnight. Then we get into a decent shot of snow overnight, before things wind down quickly near daybreak on Thursday from the northwest to the southeast.

This will be another fluffy snow as well. So there is some credence to thinking about some extra 3-inch totals too, with the higher-than-average snow ratios moving through with the disturbance. 15-20 to 1 ratios are possible before daybreak.

This will be more refined tomorrow, but it’s certainly worth mentioning now.

Final note regarding the system from the past weekend:

The main issue is that the snow amounts were somewhat overdone. KCI ended up with about 2 inches of snow, with higher amounts north.

Every impact was predicted to perfection: the roads, the bitter cold, the ice, the sleet, the sub-zero wind chills, the winds… everything EXCEPT the amount of snow.

Here because of the faster movement of the wave coming from the southwest and a much farther north path… we just didn’t have things match up. You know how concerned we were about the sleet-to-snow switch. In the end, that was one reason why the snow underperformed. The other reason was a track too far north for us to get into the best snows. Finally things were moving so fast in the fast flow above us, we just weren’t in the best spot to get the best out of this.

Really the low-end numbers in the range weren’t too bad and I stressed on the air that the high-end numbers would only happen with everything coming together right. Here is reality.

To some extent northern Missouri underwhelmed almost more so than Kansas City did in totals. So I’m conflicted with how to view the system as a whole…

Everything was perfect, except the snow total aspect of things which is a biggie to most.

Joe