Kansas City braces for one of its coldest nights in decades as wind chills plunge near -20
Temperatures will take a plunge overnight in Kansas City, possibly setting another record low as they tumble into the negative teens by Tuesday morning, according to FOX4 meteorologist Joe Lauria.
“Just an awful weekend, terrible Monday for weather and Tuesday’s not going to be much better,” said Lauria who provides weather updates to The Star. “Although, for some good news, the sunshine will return on Tuesday, but we want you to be weather aware through Wednesday.”
Temperatures at Kansas City International Airport, the official weather reporting station for Kansas City, remained at -1 degree as of 8 p.m. Monday. The wind chill, however, indicated that it felt more like -19 degrees. A few hours earlier, the wind chill had dipped to -32 degrees.
“This life-threatening cold really needs to be taken seriously,” Lauria said. “The risk of frostbite after 30 minutes — or actually really after 15 minutes — is rather high. And we’ve got single digit highs in the forecast again for tomorrow.”
The record breaking cold and high demand led to a power grid emergency and rolling power outages Monday afternoon for thousands of electrical customers in the Kansas City area. Although the threat of an electrical power shortage waned, Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas asked that the city’s downtown skyline go dark Monday night to conserve electricity.
Rolling power outages and record cold has convinced many Kansas City area schools to declare a snow day, canceling both in person and remote classes for Tuesday.
What weather apps can’t tell you about the incredibly cold weather is that Kansas City had a record low temperature on Sunday, a record low and a record cold high on Monday and possibly another record low on Tuesday, he said.
“We’ve got all the ingredients,” Lauria said. “The only issue is do we clear out in time to allow temperatures to crater and I think they will overnight. So again, one of the coldest nights we’ve seen in several decades in Kansas City.”
More snow is headed Kansas City’s way as another winter storm is in the forecast towards the middle of the week, Lauria said. Between a dusting to two inches of snow is possible
“Finally as we head towards the weekend, temperatures getting above the freezing mark,” he said.
The warm-up into the weekend, however, will come in baby steps, with temperatures in the 30s and 40s expected over the weekend, he said.
BEHIND THE STORY
MOREHow we did this story
The Star produced this weather update in partnership with the local FOX4 television station. The station’s meteorologists create forecast videos multiple times a day for the newspaper to include in its weather reports.
This story was originally published February 15, 2021 at 8:55 PM.
