After flirting with highs near 60, Kansas City could see coldest temps of this winter
The Kansas City area will see high temperatures soar to near 60 degrees this week, but some of the coldest weather of this winter season will be closely behind, said FOX4 meteorologist Karli Ritter.
“The clouds will be pretty thick this (Monday) morning, trying to give way to some sunshine late in the day and if we can squeak out a little sunshine, we should pop up nicely into the upper 30s,” said Ritter, who provides weather updates to The Star. “But that may be hard pressed to happen as we head through the afternoon.”
The high temperature is expected to reach 37 degrees, which is just a couple degrees shy of the the typical high of 39 degrees for this time of year in Kansas City.
Temperatures, however, will gradually warm through the first part of the week, climbing to around 50 on Tuesday and then flirting with 60s on Wednesday.
“Then on Thursday, we’ll start to introduce some rain and there may be up to our north a little wintry mix on the backside of this — something we’ll be monitoring very closely,” Ritter said. The high on Thursday is expected to be in the mid-40s.
There will be quite a shift in temperatures headed into the end of the week, with overnight lows expected to fall into the teens and the single digits, she said.
Temperatures overnight on Saturday are expected to hit 4 degrees, which would be the coldest temperatures of this winter season. So far this winter, the coldest it has been was 6 degrees on Christmas, according to data from the National Weather Service in Kansas City.
What followed is best described as a wet and warm January.
The average temperature of the month was 34.1 degrees, which was about 5.3 degrees above normal and the 22nd warmest January in Kansas City’s history. The coldest it got was 18 degrees on Jan. 28.
For the month, Kansas City had 2.47 inches, which was 1.40 inches above the normal amount of precipitation of 1.07 inches. Snow totals was 5.1 inches, about a half inch above normal.
The average temperatures for each month this winter have been more than 5 degrees warmer than normal, with November seeing an average temperature of 49.3, which was 5.7 degrees above normal, and December seeing an average temperature of 36.6, which was 5.1 degrees above normal.
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 1, 2021 at 8:41 AM.
