Photographer Robin Lorenson sent me a photo of the heavy snow that fell in Mulvane on Saturday. The 6.8 inches of snow and ice pellets recorded by the Wichita office of the National Weather Service more than doubled the snowfall total for the season.
More wintry images can be found at Robin’s Web site, www.robinlorensonphoto.com
And that’s no April Fool’s Joke.
The National Weather Service is expecting as much as 5 inches of snow in portions of western Kansas – from Lakin northwest past Hays – and 2 to 4 inches are being forecast from the southwest corner up through Larned.
Measurable snow is forecast as far east as Medicine Lodge, Pratt and the Reno/Stafford County line. Flurries could visit the Wichita area Thursday morning, though no accumulation is expected.
The Dodge City branch of the National Weather Service has put together a list and map of snowfall totals from the major snow storm that struck late last week.
While longtime residents of the region are saying it’s the worst snow storm in recent memory, weather service officials say what happened last week is hardly unusual. Blizzards in southwest Kansas actually happen most often in March – even late March.
Here are a couple of photos courtesy of Mike Miller, who works for the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks and lives in Pratt. Those glimpses of black fur in one of the photos is actually a labrador retriever weighing about 100 pounds – not exactly a small dog.
The National Weather Service received a report of 28 inches of snow a mile west of Pratt, and there were several reports in the area of at least 2 feet.
Todd Miller went out on Saturday to check the cattle on his farm and ranch north of Sylvia, near the Reno/Stafford county line. He found himself plodding through snow nearly up to his waist.
“I’m not in a drift,” Miller told his friend, Michael Pearce, who is also the Eagle’s outdoors writer. “I’d say we got at least 2 feet, maybe as much as 30 inches. The good thing is that it didn’t drift. I guess it was too wet and heavy to blow. My word, if this would have drifted like a lot of snows it’d have been a mess.”
“We have cows walking and dragging their bellies in the snow,” he added. “It’s the most snow I’ve ever seen in my lifetime.”
Todd’s father, Bud Miller, is in his 80s and was raised in the same area. He’s seen bigger drifts, “but never this much snow just sitting there flat,” Todd said. “That’s what all of the old farmers are telling me…bigger drifts, but they’ve never seen regular snow this deep.”
Official reports of 28 inches came from places not far from Miller’s ranch, and snowfall of a foot or more was widespread in western and central Kansas.
As of noon on Monday, Miller said about half of the snow had melted. And one more thing: At this time last week Miller was worried because his wheat fields really needed moisture.
That’s no longer a concern.
Photographer Katherine Bay, with whom I chatted in an earlier blogpost, shared a couple of photos that she took while on a stroll earlier today:
As the snow continues to fall on much of the state, noteworthy accumulations – in some cases startling totals for March in Kansas – are being reported.
Reno County emergency management is reporting 18 inches of snow in Hutchinson, and that’s not even the most in the state. A mile west of Pratt, 28 inches of snow has fallen. Coldwater is reporting 24 inches, with heavy snow still occurring. Inman is reporting 18 inches, Ellinwood 17, Windom and Sterling 15. Hugoton and Ulysses in southwest Kansas are reporting 14 inches. In central Kansas, a foot of snow has fallen at Chase and Great Bend, 11 inches in Plevna and 10 inches at McPherson. Elsewhere in southwest Kansas, 10 inches is reported at Johnson City and 9 inches at Elkhart and Lakin. A blizzard is being reported at Ellsworth, where 9 inches has already fallen.
Persistent snow is falling in Wichita, and the National Weather Service is now forecasting a total of 3 to 6 inches of snow for the city.
I couldn’t help but ask myself that question as I reflected on the forecasts of a foot of snow or more in spots, with blizzard conditions dropping visibility to zero.
National Weather Service meteorologist Jeff Johnson chuckled when I asked him that question.
“Very carefully,” he said with just a touch of sarcasm.
But there’s more truth to that than humor. It’s not easy to measure the snowfall totals in a blizzard, because it’s so difficult to find places that haven’t been affected by blowing or drifting. Yet that’s what it takes to get authentic readings on how much snow actually fell.
It’ll be very interesting to see what kinds of totals emerge from this memorable winter storm.
Meteorologists are detecting lightning in snow bands now located in northern Oklahoma. That’s a bad sign for those hoping Wichita somehow avoids a heavy snow later today.
Thunder snow is a thunderstorm that is producing snow instead of rain, and it produces heavy snowfall rates – 2 to 3 inches an hour. A few hours of that, combined with more snow overnight, and it’s no wonder some meteorologists are saying the record snow storm total for Wichita is under threat.
Snow drifts of two feet were already being reported in northwest Kansas Thursday night, and large drifts can be expected in the Wichita area as well.
A major winter storm is expected to bring heavy, wet snow and strong winds to Kansas — including Wichita — for the next couple of days.
“Certainly, anyone from Pratt west needs to be extremely vigilant in getting prepared for this storm,” said Mike Smith, chief executive officer of WeatherData Services, a subsidiary of AccuWeather.
“Some areas could easily get a foot and a half, and there might be some spots that get more.”
The National Weather Service has already issued a winter storm watch for much of western Kansas from late Thursday night to late Friday night, with as much as 10 inches of snow expected near the Oklahoma border and gusty winds creating blizzard conditions at times on Friday.
Wichita can also expect snow on Friday into Saturday, forecasters say — and it could be a lot.
“You can’t even rule out a foot” of snow for Wichita, National Weather Service meteorologist Chris Jakub said. “It just depends on the track.”
See Thursday’s Eagle for more on this story.