When will winter storm hit Kansas City, and how much snow will fall?

Prepare to dig out your snow shovels and ice scrapers.

The Kansas City area could be in for a tough wintry weekend, with freezing rain, snow and bitterly cold temperatures. But weather forecasters say there’s still lots of uncertainty about the exact timing of a winter storm and how much snowfall it will bring.

“I would say this has the potential to be a fairly significant snow event,” said Brett Williams, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Kansas City/Pleasant Hill. “It’s definitely something that has our attention.

“We feel pretty confident we’re going to get some accumulating snow. The stuff that we’re still a little bit unsure about is the exact track of the system.”

The storm, Williams said, will likely hit overnight Saturday and early Sunday morning, then continue through late Sunday.

“Right now for the Kansas City area, I would say we’re probably looking at about a 50% chance for snowfall to exceed 3 inches,” he said. “At the moment, it looks like the heaviest snow might fall northeast of Kansas City, so like toward the Chillicothe, Kirksville area, kind of north central, northeast Missouri.”

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Freezing rain, low temperatures

There’s also a possibility of freezing rain prior to the snow, Williams said.

“This is definitely something that people need to be aware of,” he said. “We could be looking at a fairly impactful winter weather event for the area.”

On top of that, Williams said, the temperatures will be plummeting, with lows dipping into the single digits Sunday night and Monday night and sub-zero wind chills.

Before the main event this weekend, the weather service said, a “quick scooter” on Thursday will bring light snow — up to an inch — across northern Missouri, mainly north of U.S. Route 36, that could make travel tricky in some spots.

“I think that’s going to steer clear of the KC metro,” Williams said.

Forecast for the weekend

Thursday’s high will be about 42 degrees, he said, with a low of 22 on Thursday night. Friday should see a high around freezing and a low of 18.

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Saturday’s high also will be around freezing, Williams said, with a low around 21 degrees. On Sunday, the high is expected to be about 30 degrees, and the low Sunday night around 10.

That’s the start of the big chill.

“The big-time arctic cold comes in Sunday night,” he said, “and hangs around next week.”

Uncertainty in forecast

Other local meteorologists also noted that the precise snowfall totals were difficult to predict at this point. A post Wednesday on KCTV5’s website said the weather models weren’t in agreement regarding the snow accumulation and the totals “are still being negotiated through new information that we achieve almost every three hours and will continue to change all the way up to the 11th hour of this snow system.

“But at this time, we are starting to see a pattern of significant snow accumulation,” it said. “The current data indicates up to 18 inches of snow around I-70 and the metro. However, we have seen as little as 5 inches of snow from two less popular modeling data systems.

“Anyway, this shapes up whether it’s 5 inches or 18 inches, this amount of snow to the metro and our surrounding areas is significant and can be dangerous for commuting either on the roads or in the air.”

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