Good Tuesday bloggers,
We are having a cold April week with a freeze yesterday and temperatures running 10-20 degrees below average. There is a system we are watching closely for Thursday-Friday that could take our cold week to another level. This system will likely produce accumulating snow for many locations. The question is where will the main band of snow set up? Let's go through this interesting week of weather.
WEDNESDAY: A weak system may bring snow to northeast Missouri during the early morning. Otherwise, it will be a decent day with highs in the 50s. You can see below the start of the set up for Thursday. A front is forming to the south separating highs in the 70s from highs in the 40s. Once a storm system arrives from the Rockies Thursday, a zone of rain and snow will set up and some of the precipitation will be quite heavy.
THURSDAY: Look at this surface set up now. We are in the 30s Thursday afternoon while it is in the 60s and 70s from Oklahoma to southern Missouri. This is a true battle between winter and spring.
THURSDAY 7 AM-NOON: The precipitation is rapidly increasing with snow likely across northwest Missouri to southeast Nebraska. Rain and a few thunderstorms will be increasing to the south.
THURSDAY NOON-7 PM: The snow is spreading across northern Missouri while the rain is becoming rather heavy just west of KC. Some thunderstorms will be possible as well.
THURSDAY NIGHT: If we are going to see snow in Kansas City it will occur Thursday night. There are growing signs that we will. Now, will it be enough to accumulate? There are growing signs of that as well. The only way it will accumulate is if it comes down hard enough and long enough and mostly at night. You can get snow to stick to grassy surfaces this time of year during the day if it snows hard enough. This solution does check all the boxes. Keep in mind our last measurable snow occurred on February 12th and every time we have had a snow chance since then it has fallen apart.
SNOWFALL FORECAST: This is not a joke. This data has 15" at Kirksville and 1.3" here in KC. This storm has the potential to produce a small band of 10" to 15" of snow. Let's see how this evolves and looks tomorrow.
RAINFALL FORECAST: This is a wet storm and we could see 1" to 1.50" of rain/melted snow. Ignore the Kirksville reading as they are in the 1" to 1.50" range. This data has all the precipitation coming down as snow up there. If you need to fertilize, Wednesday is the day to put it down.
FRIDAY: The storm will exit quickly. The sun will return by afternoon and highs may get close to 50. When it does snow in April, it does disappear quickly. The 60s return this weekend!
Have a great rest of your week and stay warm and healthy.
