Good morning bloggers,
Here we go again! A storm is targeting our area and it has more tricks up its sleeves, and, this system is having an impact on Sunday's forecast out at Arrowhead. Let's get started with today.
Kansas City's Forecast:
- Expect another great winter day. There will be some thin high clouds with the sun shining through them. The winds will be out of the south to southwest at 10-20 mph. High: 55°
- Thursday: Mostly sunny. High: 55°
- Friday: Increasing clouds. There is a chance of rain showers by evening. High: 40°
- Saturday: Cloudy with a 99% chance of snow (I would go 100% but Nate Bukaty of Sports Radio 810 WHB discussed it is never 100%). Accumulations of at least 1" are expected. This would end the snowflake contest
- Sunday: Cold, but the sun will return by afternoon for tailgating. High: 34° Dry for the game!
Our snowflake contest continues. It takes 1" to accumulate in front of the KSHB 41 studios to end the contest. This may be our best chance yet, let's take a look.
Saturday's Storm System
A storm will be moving across southern Canada and dropping south over Kansas and Missouri by Friday night and Saturday. On this first map below, you can see a large area of snow from eastern Nebraska dipping down to KC by 6 a.m. Saturday.
6 a.m. Saturday Forecast
What is creating the area of snow? There is a disturbance tracking south from Canada and right over Kansas. How this tracks will go a long way to helping us predict how much snow will fall. One fact about this storm is that it doesn't become very organized until Sunday when it reaches the Tennessee Valley.
Look at how this storm gets organized as it moves over Tennessee and Kentucky by Sunday evening.
6 p.m. Sunday Forecast
This map, above, shows the 6 p.m. Sunday forecast as the Kansas City Chiefs host the Pittsburgh Steelers with a 7:15 p.m. kickoff. The black solid lines are called isobars, or lines of equal pressure. Notice how they are far apart near KC. This means there is very little pressure gradient, and this will lead to almost no wind. So, it may be a bit cold out at Arrowhead, but with almost no wind that would make up for some of the cold we will deal with. There is also a little disturbance we have to watch. Look at the very small little blue shade in northwestern Iowa. That is a weak and fast moving disturbance. I can't completely rule out there won't be a snow shower later in the game, but the chance is low at the moment.
Snowfall Forecast From The Models:
The models are again all over the place, but I have not found one with less than 1" in KC. If you look closely, you can see that the less than 1" is not that far away.
European Model:
This next snowfall map shows the American Model. It does have less than 1" in areas just southeast of KC. How did this model do this? The storm goes through a transition, and that transition to the bigger storm in the eastern USA starts early enough to shut down our snow in the KC region. This lowers the amounts as the system comes in from the north. Then, it begins performing again and produces much larger snowfall totals from Tennessee and Kentucky into the northeastern states.
Here is a closer look at our area:
Model Forecasts as of 8 AM this morning:
So, here we go again! Another tough forecast for us and we will go in-depth on our weather forecasts today and tonight. I put the probability of the snowflake contest ending at 60%, with still a 40% chance we stay under 1" on the Plaza. As we get closer, we will either up that probability, or drop it. More in our next blog entry tomorrow morning.
Thank you for sharing in this weather experience and spending a few minutes reading today's blog entry. We will be updating our forecast with KC's most accurate forecast since 1999 tonight on KSHB 41. Have a great day!
Gary
