Say goodbye to balmy weather; a frigid week lies ahead

Starting Tuesday, you can kiss the near-T-shirt weather goodbye.

And that record-setting 67 degrees on Christmas Day might seem like a figment of your imagination.

“We’ve been sitting pretty, but that’s about to change,” said Sarah Grana, a National Weather Service meteorologist.

After Kansas City hit 50 degrees on Monday afternoon — 12 degrees above normal — Tuesday’s highs will barely make it above freezing, hovering around 33 degrees for most of the afternoon, Grana said.

“And after that, the real cold air will start to move through,” she said. “The lows Tuesday night into Wednesday morning for downtown will be 14 degrees, but it’s probably going to feel more like two degrees.”

The culprit, Grana said, is an upper-level disturbance moving through the area.

“As it moves past, it’ll grab the cold air from Canada, so we’re going to have an arctic blast,” she said. “So we’ll have those northerly winds, which can bring that cold air down into the area.”

Wednesday’s high will be about 24 degrees, and Thursday should reach 22 after a low of 13, according to the Weather Service. Grana said there’s about a 30 percent chance of snow Wednesday night into Thursday morning, with possible accumulation of about half an inch in downtown Kansas City.

Friday’s low will be a frigid 11 degrees, and most of the area will barely creep into the 30s for highs, Grana said.

“It’s not going to be quite as cold as a few weeks ago,” Grana said, “but it’ll be plenty cold.”

Temperatures for next weekend should reach the upper 20s to lower 30s, Grana said, with lows around 15 degrees.

“After next weekend, we might warm up a little bit again starting around Tuesday,” Grana said. “But that’s still over seven days out.”

This story was originally published January 2, 2017 at 7:19 PM with the headline "Say goodbye to balmy weather; a frigid week lies ahead."