Intense weather phenomenon drops over a foot of snow in a thin band across Kansas

An intense and nearly unpredictable band of snow formed a thin stripe across Kansas, dumping over a foot of flurries in some spots, meteorologists say.

It was visible from satellites and airplanes with a distinct line of white sharply bordered land without a trace of snow.

The “extremely narrow” band of snow stretched from south central Kansas to near the Nebraska border and left between 2 to 13 inches, according to the National Weather Service in Wichita.

It wreaked havoc on travelers on Interstate 70 and Interstate 135, causing numerous accidents, officials said. The westbound lanes of I-70 were shut down because of crashes.

A Twitter user captured it from the air on a Southwest flight.

Another traveler on a flight from Minneapolis-Saint Paul to Dallas-Fort Worth captured the band above Hutchinson, Kansas.

The National Weather Service estimated the band was about 10 to 15 miles wide.

The weather phenomenon was caused by two masses of air colliding with each other, which caused a “pileup” of air that turned into a narrow band of heavy snowfall, a Washington Post meteorologist wrote. Because this happens on a local level, rather than a widespread storm system, the snowfall is difficult to predict, the meteorologist said.

Usually, these heavy bands of snow are “embedded” within large snowstorms, according to The Weather Channel.

That wasn’t the case on Tuesday.

An area of low pressure in the upper atmosphere focused a “narrow zone” of moist air to lift above Kansas and drop snow, The Weather Channel reported.

These snow bands occur more often with the lake effect in the Great Lakes region, the Washington Post meteorologist said.

“But there are no Great Lakes out in Kansas,” he wrote. “Instead, the atmosphere simply must have been feeling a bit fickle. The weather never ceases to amaze.”

This story was originally published February 27, 2020 at 5:06 PM.