*** Winter Storm Watch for locations along/west of a Lincoln to Ellsworth to Lyons line this evening through tomorrow morning.
*** Winter Weather Advisory as far east as a Salina to McPherson to Hutchinson line, 9pm to 9am tomorrow.
If you’re traveling to western Kansas, say west of Highway 281, you should go this morning or wait till tomorrow. A fast-moving late-season winter storm is winding up and will bring moderate to at times heavy snowfall in central Kansas tonight, after starting as rain this afternoon. Snowfall totals west of K-14 may go as high as 4 inches, with higher amounts the further west you get. East of there look for 1 to 3 inches tapering to nothing east of the Turnpike. It won’t last long, though, with the system pulling out of the area tomorrow and springtime temps returning for the weekend.
We expect another round of decent rainfall to start next week, this time around it looks like it should remain all liquid. We’re seeing forecasts of up to 2 inches of total moisture from the two systems.
This system will be a boom or bust scenario. As an example, Dodge City — models are showing possible snowfall from just under 2 inches to almost 12 inches. There is one outlier model that puts 4-5 inches in Hutch. Thunder snow is possible, and where convective processes overlay temps near freezing, snowfall rates could reach 2 inches an hour or more. We’re going to stick with 4 inches plus for the Winter Storm Watch area and 1-3 for the Winter Weather Advisory area, but it’s likely we’ll bust both low *and* high.
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