Winter Weather Advisory issued for Kansas City area
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — As many see flurries fly through the sky, parts of the Kansas City area could see another round of accumulating snow on Tuesday.
The National Weather Service has issued a Winter Weather Advisory starting at 3 p.m. Tuesday through 6 a.m. Wednesday.
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The following counties are included under the advisory: Atchison, Doniphan, Leavenworth, Wyandotte and Johnson in Kansas as well as Atchison, Nodaway, Worth, Gentry, Holt, Andrew, De Kalb, Buchanan, Clinton, Platte, Clay and Jackson in Missouri.
Many in the Kansas City area have already seen flurries Tuesday morning. Add that to 30-degree temperatures and wind chills in the 20-degree range, and you’ve got some real winter for a change in Kansas City.
The FOX4 Weather Team and NWS said more snow is expected from this slow-moving storm on Tuesday afternoon.
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FOX4’s Joe Lauria is expecting a dusting to 1 inch for most, no more than 2 inches. Meanwhile, the NWS said accumulation will likely be less than 2 inches.
But the snow could impact visibility at times and lead to slippery road conditions during the Tuesday evening commute.
Many city and state road crews were out preparing for the latest winter weather.
Shawnee Public Works Department started pre-treating all primary and residential roads in the city Tuesday morning just before the snow started to roll in. City staffers are hopeful that salting the roads early will help avoid any icy conditions.
“Based on the current conditions right now we are hopeful that this pretreatment keeps the roads passable, and we won’t necessarily have to have any crews out plowing later today, but we will have a crew in overnight to monitor conditions and respond as necessary,” said Doug Donahoo, spokesman for the City of Shawnee.
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Shawnee sent 10 drivers out Tuesday morning to salt the roads. With it being the day after Christmas, the pre-treatment operation took slightly longer to complete than usual.
“It’s a little bit of a smaller crew just because we are between Christmas and New Year’s right now; it’ll take about 6-8 hours so a full day,” Donahoo explained.
“If they had a bigger crew, it would take a little bit less time, but it’s just to make sure that they get salt down to hopefully prevent anything from sticking on the street or developing in terms of icy conditions.”
Several other cities, including Independence and Raymore, also have snow crews treating roads.
“Drive a little bit slower, give yourself plenty of time in between cars, and when you are out, make sure you have a jacket or a blanket in your car just in case you might need it or something might happen in that regard,” Donahoo said.
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This storm will waffle around through Wednesday, so the risk of additional snows will slowly move away and shift off toward central Missouri.
The system will finally be far enough away from us on Thursday to allow the sunshine to return, but blustery conditions will continue even then.
For fans of big snowstorms, there isn’t any good news in the near future. We still aren’t seeing any semblance of an organized winter storm to heavily impact the region with a lot of snow through the first week of January.
