KANSAS CITY, Mo. — March can be a pretty crazy month for weather…as I say it’s Mother Nature’s version of March Madness and she’s dishing it out. For example, yesterday Washington DC had a 12AM high of 77° after breaking a record high of 86° the day before. Then they had 1/10″ of snow with other areas in Virginia getting 2″ of snow. It’s a reminder that the myth “the ground is too warm for snow to pile up” is just that…a myth.
The key though is to have the snowfall rates be heavy enough to counteract the snow melting rates with the warm ground. Obviously the colder the air the better the chance of sticking snow and it helps more if this is more after the sun goes down as well.
We are in an interesting predicament for Sunday. Warm weather on Saturday, 70s are very doable, a warm start to the Day on Sunday…near 60° and perhaps a few degrees warmer before the cold front and a wall of wind moves into the area. Some rain, perhaps a few t/storms as well, especially on the MO side (maybe some small hail) and then the plunging temperatures will all work to create a dynamic weather day…the issue is in that colder air will there be snow, then how hard will the snow fall, then combined with winds near 45 MPH or higher in gusts and maybe even stronger at night Sunday, what will that do to the visibilities. Can we get near blizzard conditions? Do we have a black ice risk with the tanking temperatures and perhaps wet to slushy roads freezing up on Sunday night? So many things on the table…