JANUARY RULES...

The big storm to our south Sunday was quite the snow producer, with 10 or more inches found from Kansas to West Virginia. Near Manhattan, Kansas, 18 inches were measured with 17 inches in parts of Topeka! St Louis got in on the act too, with most of the NW suburbs seeing 9–13 inches. No more than 2" was found in my area and that was way down south near Macomb where it was expected to stay (and did).

Here's a closer perspective showing the hardest hit areas from Kansas City off to the northwest

Below are snow totals from around the Kansas City metro area. 11 inches was officially measured there Sunday, a record for the date. It was also the 4th largest snowstorm in Kansas City history! Nice going chiefs.

This graphic shows snow reports in Iowa. You can see how dry air locally kept the more significant amounts just to the south. So typical....

This is a cool satellite taken Monday as skies were clearing. The animation shows where clouds are located and their movement. The non-moving swaths of white are where snow is on the ground. You can see Thursday's snow band over central Iowa. Sunday's snow event reached as far north as the southern Iowa border, where it stopped dead in its tracks.

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THE NAO FACTOR...

Behind the storm, high pressure is building and will see to it that we remain cold and dry through Thursday. In fact, one of the key factors in the nation's weather currently is the North Atlantic Oscillation. A strong negative phase of the teleconnection, like we are seeing, tends to be associated with below-normal temperatures in the eastern 2/3rds of the United States. It can also yield stormy (snowy) weather from the mid-Mississippi Valley to the East Coast, especially this time of year. The 500mb loading pattern of a blocking high pressure over Greenland forces a storm track that runs across the southern U.S. That allows a fair amount of cold air into the pattern. It can produce good snows in the Midwest, but as we just saw over the weekend, the cold air can be so deep that the storms bypass our region to the south. We end up cold but unscathed by the snow.

The GFS ensembles indicate the NAO stays largely negative through January 20th. That's a good indicator that the next 2 weeks will be colder than average, what you would expect in January.

Additionally, the extensive snow cover that now exists from Kansas, and Missouri and points east, will modify any warmth that tries to come from the south. By the way, Sunday's storm now has 42 percent of the nation covered by at least an inch of snow. Christmas Day, only 17.1 percent was white.

Here's what fell over the past 2 days.

The south is up next for snow as a big-time storm is set to dump on SE Oklahoma, Arkansas, and North Texas, including Dallas on Thursday. For now, the EURO is indicating amounts of 8 or more inches in a wide swath. This is another system being enhanced by the negative NAO.

Personally, I'm getting a bit fed up with our lack of luck here at home. Aside from a few pockets of 6 inch totals, most places in Iowa have seasonal snow accumulations of 1–4 inches. That is abysmal. When places in Texas, Arkansas, and Mississippi are getting 2–3 times the amounts we have seen in a single storm, you know it's been a lame year for snow.

Not one to give up easily, I remain eternally optimistic that a snow will find us one of these days. The next crack, nothing special, comes Sunday from a clipper diving into the mean trough over the middle of the country. Moisture will be scant so at best, it would be a 1-2 inch event if it even pans out. It certainly appears that another chunk of cold air rotates in behind the clipper early next week. Look at the temperature departures the GFS indicates next Monday and Tuesday. Also notice, how much colder it is where deep snow cover is found to our south.

That's where things stand on a chilly January night. Until next time, roll weather and send snow! TS