Winter Weather in Kansas, January 22, 2019

A moisture-starved, weak low pressure system dropped 1 to 4 inches of snow on this Tuesday. This event really evolved as two separate areas of snow. During the mid to late morning hours, a very narrow southwest-northeast oriented band of snow developed from central Kansas, across north central Kansas, into southeast Nebraska. This band moved east and gradually became wider and better organized. The western edge of this band was most persistent over eastern Jewell and Mitchell counties. The snow ended over these counties by 7 PM CST. While this was transpiring, a separate narrow band had developed from northwest Kansas into south central Nebraska. This band moved east as well and entered Phillips and Rooks counties between 5 and 6 PM CST. This band crossed the rest of north central Kansas and exited to the east by 1 AM CST. This band was only two counties wide, but at times, there was an embedded band of heavier snow that was much more narrow, less than one county wide. Most locations only measured 1 inch from this event. The highest totals were where the snow was most persistent, over Jewell county, where 3.0 inches was measured at Lovewell Dam, and 4.1 inches at Webber. Throughout this event, the character of all the radar returns, from both areas of snow, was so poorly-organized that the snow bands exhibited a skeletal structure.

At the surface, a weak low pressure system emerged from Colorado and moved east through Kansas. This low never had a closed isobar. In the upper-levels a positively-tilted trough was over Colorado and New Mexico at daybreak. This trough advanced into Nebraska, Kansas and extreme western Texas by sunset. This was the primary trough over the CONUS, with a ridge over the eastern Pacific and a ridge along the East Coast.