Weather

Actions

Weather Blog: 4th Wettest Year in Recorded KC History

Posted at 8:10 AM, Dec 29, 2019
and last updated 2019-12-29 10:32:29-05

Good Sunday bloggers,

Our rare, late December, heavy rain event is over. Some locations saw almost all of Decembers average rainfall (1.53") in a few hours on Saturday. One of those locations was KCI airport which is the official recording station for Kansas City. The storm total was 1.50" at KCI. 1.84" fell in Topeka and 1.42" was recorded in Overland Park. Clinton did not have 0.00". This is a missing report.

Now, could we see snow tonight? It depends on a small system in Nebraska. Later today, as the main storm reorganizes in the upper Midwest, this disturbance will head southeast and weaken. The snow that it is producing will weaken as well. It looks like there will be enough to bring snowflakes to KC. But, will there be enough to cause slick spots?

SUNDAY 5 PM: It will be mostly cloudy, windy and cold with temperatures in the 30s and wind chill values in the teens and 20s. Notice the area of snow approaching Topeka.

SUNDAY 9 PM: The area of snow is now over the state line and has become small and mostly light. This is probably not enough to cause road issues, but could tint some grass white. Temperatures will be just below freezing and slowly falling at night. So, we have to watch this closely. It won't take much more than is shown here to coat all surfaces, leaving slick spots. The new data through the day will help, but it will take now-casting to figure this out. This means we will have to watch radar trends and pavement temperatures hour by hour this evening and night.

MONDAY: It will be mostly cloudy, windy and cold with highs 30°-35° and wind chill values between 10° and 25°.

NEW YEARS EVE: The day will be sunny with highs around 40°. Temperatures will drop from the mid 30s to upper 20s between 5 PM and midnight. The wind will be 5-15 mph with dry conditions. Again, please do NOT drink/text and drive. That goes for each of the 365 days of the year, not just day 365 and day 1.

It will be in the low 50s on January 1st and there is a system to watch for Thursday and Friday that could bring some rain and snow. We will have more on this through the week.

Happy New Year!