Kansas City forecast: Freezing rain, sleet expected Friday evening, then snow Saturday
Parts of Missouri and Kansas, including the entire Kansas City area, have been placed under a winter storm watch as a wintry mix of precipitation and several inches of snow are expected to fall at the start of the weekend.
FOX4 meteorologist Joe Lauria has provided to The Star the latest information on the forecast.
Throughout most of the day Friday, the Kansas City area will see rain, which could be heavy at times. Temperatures are expected to be above freezing with temperatures in the low 40s.
But the key time frame to watch for is Friday evening, after rush hour, when Kansas City may start to see freezing rain or sleet, Lauria said.
Thunderstorms are also possible east of Kansas City.
As colder air sets in, “whatever is wet tomorrow night will glaze up” early Saturday morning, the meteorologist said.
“The back side of the system is the one that’s going to be the snow producer,” Lauria said. “This could come in sometime Saturday morning into lunchtime Saturday.”
The area then may see “moderate to heavy snow” for a few hours sometime late Saturday morning into the afternoon hours, he said.
“If that happens, we could get a pretty decent accumulation to the snow,” Lauria said. “There are still questions, though, about the storm track itself. Will it shift a little farther to the southeast? Will it weaken a little bit? All those things come together when we try to figure out how much snow we’re going to have.”
As of Thursday night’s forecast update, it appeared the Kansas City area could possibly see between 4 to 8 inches of snow. In its winter storm advisory issued Thursday afternoon, the National Weather Service in Pleasant Hill was predicting total snow accumulations of 3 to 6 inches and ice accumulations of around two-tenths of an inch.
“The 8-inch totals could be a little on the high side, but it’s possible depending on how well the storm comes together,” Lauria said.
Sunday’s forecast calls for partly sunny skies and temperatures in the low 30s.
Temperatures are expected to increase again early next week.
This story was originally published January 9, 2020 at 8:48 PM.
