The National Weather Service is predicting Missouri’s first widespread, measurable snowfall of the winter to happen this weekend.
This graphic from the National Weather Service’s Kansas City office shows the predicted snowfall for the weekend.
“I’d say we’re near 100-percent sure we’re going to see our first real accumulating snowfall over at least the north half of the state,” Warning Coordination Meteorologist Andy Bailey told Missourinet. “Far southern Missouri will probably escape this system with less than an inch, but up along the Iowa border and along the Kansas border we’re looking probably around three inches or so, give or take an inch.
The dividing line between areas predicted to see two to three inches of snow and one to two inches is from roughly Nevada, northeast to Quincy.
“The snow will probably begin late Saturday morning in western Missouri and rapidly work its way eastward into the early afternoon hours,” said Bailey. “The bulk of the snow will probably come in the first one to two hours of the snowfall and then it will taper off to just lighter snow into the evening hours, and it will end from west to east during the evening hours, overnight.”
He said fortunately, ice is not expected to form, but there could still be slick surfaces.
“I’m sure we’ll see a little bit of melting of the snow on roadways and refreezing, especially at night as the temperatures get down,” Bailey said. “We’ll be seeing teens for overnight lows Saturday night and Sunday night both, so even if the roads aren’t too bad, maybe just wet during the day Saturday and into Sunday, we could see some slick spots redevelop during the nighttime hours.”
Behind this system, cold temperatures will linger for a while.
“At least well into next week will probably be highs in the upper 20s and lower 30s and lows in the teens and 20s most days,” Bailey said. “In fact Tuesday morning in northern Missouri, we may see a couple of spots below zero.”
Winter Weather Advisory is in effect over most of the state north of Interstate 44.
“A Winter Weather Advisory is generally issued for conditions that will become a nuisance and could become dangerous if people don’t take proper precautions. Usually with snowfall we’re looking somewhere in the two to five-inch range. For the first snowfall of the season like we have right now, we tend to go a little bit lower with the snowfall amount,” Bailey said.
For updated information tune in to these Missourinet affiliates, and for National Weather Service information for your area, visit these NWS pages.
In northwest and western Missouri:Â Â Kansas City (Pleasant Hill)
In northeast and eastern Missouri:Â Â St. Louis
In southwest Missouri:Â Â Springfield
In southeast Missouri:Â Â Paducah, KY
Scotland and Clark counties:Â Â Davenport, IA
For Missouri highway conditions find a link to the Transportation Department’s Traveler Information Map on our homepage (also available as a smart phone app).
