Updated snowfall forecast.....Updated

What a day we had Saturday with all the anticipation with this storm and it lets us down. So what happened? Well the first problem came Friday night with warm air at the surface trying to nose it way up from the southeast. This created a concearn with not allowing the rain to changeover to snow. There was also a warm layer of air in the middle layers of the atmosphere. This warm layer of air continued through the day Saturday keeping the precipitation in the form of rain, freezing rain, and sleet. I know many of you were thinking would it ever changeover to all snow.

Finally by 3:00 PM the warm layer began to cool and a heavy band of snow developed around the Kansas City area. It trained over the same area, and dumped 3-5 inches of snow in Olathe, KS. The band of snow pressed eastward and eventually weakened, and fell apart.

Here is the visible satelite image from this morning (borrowed from NBC Action News.com):



That is all snow from Oklahoma through Missouri. The area of snow in Central Kansas measured up to 10-20 inches with drifts measured in feet!

Now that this storm is past up, we need to turn our attention to the next storm for Monday. A cold front will approach the area, and showers and thunderstorms are likely Monday night, but with the lack of moisture there really isnt a severe threat. highs Monday should make it into the 50's and low 60's before the cold front pushes through overnight. Lows Tuesday morning will be in the 30's and likely only rebound into the 40's for high Tuesday.

There is a chance of some more wintery precipitation sometime Thursday with another system approaching and cold air in place.

I will have a new blog Monday afternoon.

Alex Pickman

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Im a little late getting this in as I said I would have it in the morning, but this is a very complicated forecast. So here is my updated snowfall forecast between now (1:00 PM) through noon Sunday:

This is completely different from my previous snowfall forecast. I was expecting a changeover to snow by now, but we cannot get rid of this stubborn warm layer in middle layers of the atmosphere. This is causing the precipitation to fall as rain, freezing rain, and sleet. I am expecting the warm layer to cool to below freezing between 3 and 5 PM, and some heavy snowbands to develop.

Depending on how much moisture will be left, and when the changeover will occur, there is a chance of some significant accumulations. It looks like the heaviest band will setup near KC and likely train for a few hours. As you can see in the snowfall forecast, there could be a band of 2-5 inches. I think there could be a couple isolated areas of up to 6-8 inches.

Travel conditions will likely become hazardous later this afternoon with the freezing rain/sleet, changing over to snow.

If this warm layer of air would of cooled later Friday night or early this morning, this would and should of been a monster of a snowstorm. It was a monster over central and western Kansas where 10-20 inches of snopw fell and with winds 20-40 mph, the drifts were measured in feet!

I will have an update sometime Sunday.

Alex Pickman