KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Public works crews, hardware stores, tree trimmers and residents alike are all preparing for a rare October snowfall.
41 Action News Chief Meteorologist Gary Lezak forecasted a dusting to 2 inches of snow as the storm strengthens Wednesday afternoon and evening.
Earlier in the week, 0.3 inches of snow at KCI marked only the 14th measurable snowfall in October on record in Kansas City, according to the National Weather Service. And, NWS said, it was only the third time it had happened in back-to-back years.
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That first minimal accumulation put Kansas Citians on high alert for Wednesday’s storm.
The Kansas City, Missouri, Public Works Department said it’s prepared for the snow, but still has other work to wrap up, too.
“We aren't expecting a full-scale assault with snow tonight or tomorrow, so we won't mount every vehicle, because we're still doing other operations. We still got potholes to patch, we still got ditches that need to be dug out, pipes to be put in,” said Greg Bolon, assistant engineer in charge of operations.
He said snowfall early in the season presents unique challenges when deciding how to treat roads.
“These early storms can tend to be mostly guess work, because you're going to start out with rain so you can't do any pre-treating. Is that rain going to change to freezing rain? Is it going to sleet? Is it going to change to snow? And then what kind of depths are you going to get? Is it something that's plowable? Or is it going to be something you just have to salt?” Bolon said.
Bolon said the department is prepared with bridge crews coming in at 3:30 a.m. to treat elevated surfaces. From there, they’ll watch the forecast and make further determinations on treatment.
KCMO has five salt facilities which can hold around 37,000 tons of the material. Bolon said the city’s received around 30,000 tons so far.
Both the city and one hardware store owner 41 Action News spoke to try to have salt and ice melt in place by Nov. 1, making this late October storm problematic.
Euston Hardware stores are pulling out what salt and ice melt stock they have, Kevin Euston said, though due to the early date, some of their orders haven’t arrived yet.
“There might not be as many choices. Normally, we would have three different products, you know two or three sizes of each, the pet friendly, the calcium products which works at lower temperatures, shaker jugs, bags, 50 pound bags,” Euston said.
Euston said there are at least four pallets of salt or ice melt product at each Euston Hardware location, and he doesn’t expect them to run out.
C E Distribution in Kansas City, Kansas said it's been busy since July preordering ice melt.
Owner Melissa Clark said they've already pre-sold 45 percent of what they sold during the entire season last winter.
It helps with sales, and Clark said it also helps with future preparation.
"Because of the weather we had last year, the salt mines are low on inventory, so we got depleted way down to running out all over the country," she said. "And then they've been trying to build up the production all year so it's better to get the ice melt now because they may not get it later."
She said it's important not to buy the cheap rock salt when it comes to pre-treating driveways.
"Buy the 100 percent [magnesium], the 100 percent calcium chloride, buy something with [calcium magnesium acetate] to help protect the corrosion and breakdown of your cement," Clark said.
An October snowfall may also present problems due to the fact that many trees still bear leaves.
Local tree trimmers 41 Action News spoke to said if at least 3 inches of snow falls, “it’s going to be pretty bad.”
The last time Kansas City saw an accumulation like that in October was 1996. Downed trees littered the streets and caused power outages.
The Board of Public Utilities in Kansas City, Kansas, said it has a proactive tree-trimming plan in place so the board is confident the city will be in good shape.
Evergy said it is ready to respond to outages as quickly as possible, but might request extra crews before the storm moves in.
Many Kansas City-area counties remain under a winter weather advisory until 4 a.m. Thursday.
A freeze warning goes into effect at 1 a.m. Thursday.
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