Good morning bloggers,
The National Weather Service has issued a Winter Storm Watch for a large area in preparation for this approaching storm system. It is being issued very early to get the awareness out there. Some areas in the watch will likely be dry through most of Friday.
Kansas City Weather Time-Line:
- Today: Becoming sunny to partly cloudy. There is a 0% chance of any freezing rain!
- Tonight: Increasing clouds with a 0% chance of any freezing rain. It will stay dry!
- Friday morning: Dry early, then a band of sleet of light freezing rain is possible by noon. Temperatures around 25°.
- Friday afternoon: There is a chance of sleet of light freezing rain with very light accumulations possible.
- Friday night: Some light freezing rain or sleet possible. Accumulations of under 1/10th of an inch possible.
- Saturday: A chance of freezing rain. Accumulations of 1/10th of inch possible.
- Saturday night-Sunday morning: Freezing rain increasing and accumulating. Temperatures between 28 and 32 degrees! Accumulations of 0.1″ to 0.5″ expected. This will cause slick and hazardous conditions to untreated surfaces. Heading out of your neighborhoods to go to tailgating Sunday morning may be challenging. Temperatures 30° to 32°
- Sunday afternoon: Freezing rain changing to rain with temperatures rising to just above 32°
- Sunday night-Monday: A band of heavier rain moves in with temperatures jumping to 50° before sunrise
The winter storm watch being issued this early brings awareness to the ice storm. It will be dry in many areas until Friday night. Here are the advisories from the NWS as of this morning:
One of the main points, aspects of the LRC is that every year is unique. There are moments we have discussed this with you over the years, and now is one of those moments. We are cycling through the 2016-2017 LRC and this pattern is one I have never seen before. This next storm is caught within this pattern and it is just fascinating. Just look at last nights 10 PM surface map:
69 degrees at 10 pm in St.Louis? 70 in Tulsa! And after a high of 63 in KC, it was down to 24 degrees. Yesterday was fun to track, now what is going to happen next? As discussed in our weather time-line above it will be dry for a good 30 more hours at least, as of 7 AM this morning. Here is a graphic I showed last night:
This graphic above shows our confidence level that there will be icing. Confidence is very high that we will have a .10″ to .50″ accumulation. Confidence goes way down on amounts more than 0.5″. That .5″ threshold will place areas on the edge of this becoming a major ice storm. It will likely be the biggest ice storm in many years, but it is likely not going to be like the one in 2002. We obviously still need to monitor this closely.
There will likely be a band of very heavy snow northwest of the upper level storm systems track. This will affect eastern Colorado and extreme northwest Kansas. Kansas City has no chance of snow accumulations from this system and as you can see we are still 10″ below my forecast snowfall for the season:
There is a lot to analyze and I will update this blog this evening. Let’s see how the models come in this morning and we can continue our discussion in the comments section. The storm we are tracking is just now forming near the California coast this morning! We have a lot more time to track this storm. Thank you for sharing in this weather experience.
Gary
Still in moderation but, will be interesting to see the temp swings this weekend.
GO CHEIFS!! I feel Maclin has a game to remember.
Looking at the water vapor satellite you can see just how much pacific moisture is being pulled in. As for the gulf, I know that high pressure is pumping it in too. The question is, where is the battle ground going to set up?
Looks like the Euro is Staying course for a major Ice Storm in KC. Has Been the ONLY Model for the last 6 days to put the swath of heavy Ice from KC SW towards Central and SW Kansas/NW Oklahoma.
have a link by chance?
I can’t believe Superintendents of schools around the area are calling off schools! Longtime it’s been since I’ve posted. Don’t even know if I am going to show up as Snowmizer! So far the superintendent at LSR-7 (Lees Summit) is not panicking!
Wow close to 300 comments, just like the old days on the KSHB blog. Can’t wait to see how this all shakes out tomorrow!
Also, for the record, as a high school teacher, I don’t want to see kids driving on ice so I’m happy with the snow day!
Gonna be worse than you think 😉 Buckle up… gonna get icy!!
From NWS Topeka earlier this evening
“The models are still struggling with how far north to
bring the freezing rain on Friday and Saturday. The 12Z GFS has the
QPF amounts and placement that makes the most sense conceptually
when compared to past ice storms under similar synoptic patterns.
Usually there is an elongated swath of precip from southwest to
northeast across the central US with embedded convection. Therefore
I`m not sure why some of the models have limited QPF until the main
low pressure lifts out. Moisture does not seem to be an issue
especially in the elevated warm layer.”
There is nothing good about ice. Snow rules!
I’ll be so happy if this ice storm never gets its act together. It’s no fun at all. A power outage would be bad. Snow is so much prettier.
I just find it funny how the stores were completely packed today for, potentially, a non-event tomorrow.
Three 7s,
That has become the norm. People panic when facing a 1-3 inch snow however, when pertaining to a potential ice storm, I tend to agree in the” better to be prepared than not” theory
I agree snow is 1 thing. But ice. No thank you
0Z Canadian is by far the coldest model. Keeps temps at freezing or below through 0Z Sunday evening.
Also still shows a significant ice storm. It’s in its own camp now.
http://www.pivotalweather.com/model.php?m=ggem&p=zr_acc&rh=2017011300&fh=78&r=us_c&dpdt=
It appears that the WPC has high confidence that our area will receive 0.5″ -0.75″ of freezing rain/ice over a 24 hour period up to 18z Sunday. It is in the 95th percentile range for freezing rain accumulation.
http://origin.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/pwpf/wwd_percentiles.php?ftype=percentiles&fpd=24&ptype=icez
I am not sure what model Gary uses for powercast but it seemed to show even less ice than the nam which is the weakest on ice totals.
0Z Canadian at 12Z Sunday morning: 28 degrees
0Z GFS at 12Z Sunday morning: 33 degrees
What a huge difference..
Yeah, but we all saw how well the temps were handled by the models today……
Can someone post a link to the Canadian model please. I don’t think temps being above freezing briefly Saturday afternoon would affect totals because lack of precip at this time.
Gary on the 10pm news said he was leaning toward the .10 of ice. And that’s what the power cast showed. Showed no real ice until 7am or so Sunday lasting very little time before it changed to rain.
If Gary is right, makes the NWS look like incompetent, blithering idiots. LoL
0Z Canadian model is following the GFS on going above freezing for a time Saturday afternoon. So thats a significant change from the morning data.
I’m really surprised at the school closings already for tomorrow. Most of the models have ZERO precip tomorrow. Yes, I know there’s always a chance, but seriously…….
Just watched some of Joe Laurias FB live and he seems to be right in between Gary and KMBC. He’s not downplaying it, but he’s also not freaking people out like KMBC is. It’ll be interesting to see what actually happens! I’m one of the weird ones who wants a big ice storm… I love any kind of winter weather, always have since I was a kid.
Eric..i love snowstorms and the like, but stuck at home in the dark with no power…there’s just nothing at all fun about that.
Yeah I can understand that Heat Miser. I would be ok with that for a day but after that I’d get a little annoyed. I just love the way it looks outside after an ice storm. It’s very pretty. Like I said I am definitely one of the weird ones who’s wishing for more ice.
Funny… all these models/even high res ones/ you would think we have better forecasting but they all just have different ideas.
When does the Euro come out?
About 1 AM
School are closing based only on headlines of nws ICE STORM WARNING. tomorrow not even gonna be bad until maybe late pm. and even them amounts look minor. very early sunday morning looking like the only major issue chances
Canadian model should be coming out shortly..
I am so confused! Gary definitely downplayed it on his FB live chat then I went over to KMBC FB live chat and they acted way more concerned… Hmmm it seems like everyone is in disagreement! Lol I don’t understand why schools are being cancelled for tomorrow…. Makes no sense to me.
i wonder if it was a record day for new sign ups on here today.
Keep in mind gfs is very bad with temps. It is usually pretty accurate with precip totals though. When does Canadian come out?
Watch us get nothing and this ends up all rain and being a total flop. KC weather for ya.
lol…nobody is thinking that will happen…we will get some ice…only question is how much
GFS has just over .30 inches of ice, but that’s less than half of what it showed on its 12Z run this morning. So this continues the trend on seeing lighter amounts.
And it donut holes us. .6″ by the airport… 3/4″ near Lawrence
Gfs is wetter than the Nam but its also warmer
0Z GFS now going above freezing by 7am Sunday. This is all wonderful news!
APLS,
This close to the storm, the models become less useful. The dynamics to this storm are incredible as well as unpredictable. So when looking at the models, keep that in mind as the Mets know this and use their expertise and knowledge to attempt to interpret them.
Joe, I’m with you for the most part. Here is my issue, however. NWS issued their afternoon AFD with strong wording based on morning data. Gary, for a brief period, upped his forecast, because of the data. The NWS said this evening on a live feed, they would be trimming back forecasted ice totals because of, you guessed it, afternoon data! Gary went back to his previous forecast because of the same. The evening data is continuing the same trend, and would fully expect forecasts to follow suit, because of the new data. Storm is still a few days away,… Read more »
APLS,
Agreed and good observations however, one thing I have learned over the years is that even the mets get caught up in the data sometimes but I have seen too many storms such as this fool everybody. I guess we will know soon enough
yeah…that’s not happening
Hen House had no bread or milk. Unbelievable.
They should be restocked sometime tomorrow morning. I think this storm has awakened folks due to memories of the 2002 storm. You can’t blame people and the mets. This puppy has been all over the map with no real consistent solutions, other than the Euro and perhaps the Canadian models, and they were on the high side in terms of ice accumulation. This is not a typical weather event. Ice is much more dangerous and way harder to predict accumulations due to subtel changes in temperatures in the column. People should take heed and just be prepared. If it turns… Read more »
It would appear that Gary is going with lower total QPF for Sunday at 18z of 0.11″ liquid and 0.1″ ice for KC metro. Was on twitter at ~6:30 pm. For St. Joe, same liquid, but 0″ ice, and in Butler it was 0.41″ liquid with 0.2″ ice. Not sure which blend of model data Gary’s using for this, but something seems to be off. The NAM has been on the low side and Gary indicated that the Euro dropped as well. I don’t have access to that model to evaluate. The weather balloons that went up on the west… Read more »
Gary, by far was the most calm. This is why its much easier to start out low and then scale up vs down, especially when the storm was 3 days away.
0Z GFS now taking temps above freezing for a period of time Saturday afternoon.
Everyone on here is acting like it will be insignificant now just because of ONE run of ONE model. Let’s at least wait for the gfs euro and Canadian before we jump to conclusions. It could be a lot of it could be a little we won’t know until it happens.
the euro and gfs have been trending this way as well today
I hate typing on phone keyboards sometimes….
I think our cold air was so strong that the shallow Arctic high acted as a block slowing the storm down. Since the storm is kicking from Baja northwest, instead of pushing it further south inatead the cold air just made it cut off a bit.
Excellent point. In any case, this is all great news. Hope the storm continues to slow.
My work called me No work tomorrow.
LoL…why Terry? Nothing is happening tomorrow weather-wise.
There is plenty of moisture. The issue is that the overall storm is slowing down, which means the onset and heaviest precip fall later, which also means less ice before the surface temps climb above freezing.
The slower progression is the issue. This could really end up being a much more minor issue. Great news! GET TO ARROWHEAD ON SUNDAY KANSAS CITY!!
Btw, tickets to Sunday’s playoff game at arrowhead are going for UNDER $30 on StubHub! If you’ve ever wanted to go to a playoff game at arrowhead, but couldn’t afford it, here is your chance!
Gary,
I am so confused… I thought the Gulf was open for business with this storm? Will the system completely fall apart before Saturday night?
When you made your original forecast of 0.1-0.5″ Ice it was because you figured temps would be too warm for the duration of precip. Now it appears you may be correct simply because there will not be enough available moisture. I completely don’t understand what is going on.
Gary
On facebook live right now said the heaviest precip will be Sun night-Mon. Thats what he said yesterday. But today didnt he say heaviest would be Sat night-Sun morn ?
Can we all get some sort of petition going to ECMWF to get rid of that stupid $6,000/year or whatever they charge to get Euro data? I sent them an email requesting access flat out saying hey I’m doing this stuff just to learn programming / grib2 / how to work with the day – and they gave me access to historical stuff. But turns out I could have just done this off their freaking website. Just sent an awesome sauce response to them. heh yeah so I dug around a bit and see that you have something called MARS…… Read more »
Kurt,
It’s because the data has changed. They wanted to be aggressive and get the message out early, and now the data has backed off some, and this has a chance to be much to do about nothing.
Sometimes you can’t win with forecasting. If Gary hadn’t waffled this morning, he would look brilliant right now. Literally was the only outlet in town that was forecasting as low as .10.
Adam
Gary by far has been the most calm of all the other channels and nws. Saying from the start that this was not as bad as others where making it out to be
Its slower. There still is more moisture Monday when its rain.
Why would the national weather service put almost two states under an ice storm warning and the two states to the north under a watch with that data? Did the data they sampled have Swiss cheese for breakfast? To panic millions of people and cancel schools, discourage travel and disrupt commerce. We aren’t a gulf coast state, we should be better equipped to deal with this. And to not have a good handle on how significant this will or won’t be? Absurd, just like the poor way the December 16th nightmare was handled. Talk about 2 extremes. The meteorologists in… Read more »
It’s Because of the moisture it has available I couldn’t see less than .25 of ice for anyone unless the temperature rose much faster than expected.
Pretty much everyone has said the one thing this storm has is plenty of moisture
Oh man, if the NAM is right, this is a total bust.
.10 total downtown. LOL!!
I really just don’t think the nam is handling this right. I don’t necessarily think it will be a huge ice storm, although the potential is there for a decent one. We will have to see what other models say. We are getting close to just now casting time.
Olathe and Blue Valley buying into the hype, already cancelled school tomorrow.