Kansas City experiences strange precipitation Thursday afternoon

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — That was strange.

55 Degrees & Snowflakes!

We just had a fascinating hour of weather in Kansas City. It was 55 degrees outside at 2 p.m. Very cold air moved in aloft with a disturbance.

This caused the atmosphere to become very unstable, and these heavy showers formed. These are called convective showers.

In this picture, just northwest of downtown Kansas City, Missouri, you can see the white snow shaft heading to the ground.

KSHB

That white area is likely a mixture of large snowflakes, graupel and raindrops. The raindrops are melted snowflakes, and the graupel is the rain and snowflakes combining and falling together.

When I was approaching the Country Club Plaza, there were snowflakes falling.

This is the first time in my life I have seen it snow while it was 55 degrees a few minutes before it started falling. The much colder air aloft, combined with very dry air near the surface, allowed the snowflakes to make it to the ground before melting.

This disturbance is still moving overhead, and there are more of these convective showers tracking across KC. They will fall apart as the sun sets tonight. We will show some of the videos on KSHB-41.

Outside the KSHB 41 studios near the Country Club Plaza in Kansas City, Missouri, video showed a mix of what appeared to be rain, snow, grauple and even hail.