Meteorological winter starts off with a bang
Dec. 1 marked the start of meteorological winter just a few days ago. Safe to say Jack Frost wasn’t fooling around this year, as accumulating snowfall and shots of arctic air have swept across much of the Midwest over the past week.
The proverbial table was set for a round of wintry weather near Thanksgiving, as a polar air mass settled into the region, bringing temperatures well below average. In the proceeding days, a strong low pressure system tracked west to east across the country, spreading a swath of heavy snowfall from Iowa through eastern Missouri, Illinois and much of the Great Lakes.
Northwest Missouri and Northeast Kansas were spared by the first round of snow in the final days of November, but the luck didn’t last long as another system blew into the region on Dec. 1. While weaker than the last winter storm which proved to be a blockbuster for places like Des Moines, Chicago and St. Louis, Monday’s snowfall did end up being the first impactful round of accumulating flakes this season for the K.C. metro and surrounding areas.
Much of Northwest Missouri, including St. Joseph, picked up on 1 to 3 inches of snow, just enough to cause slick roads and coat most surfaces in a thin layer of white. The I-70 corridor from Topeka to Kansas City turned out to be the sweet spot, as bands of heavier snow totaled 3 to 5 inches, setting daily snowfall records for Kansas City International Airport at 3.6 inches and Topeka, Kansas, at 4.7 inches.
Aside from the snow, bitterly cold temperatures have been another part of the frigid weather story in recent days. Early morning lows dropped into the single digits both Tuesday and Thursday morning locally, officially falling to 4 degrees and 9 degrees respectively at Rosecrans Memorial Airport in St. Joseph, only one degree shy of tying daily record lows both mornings!
