Based solely on wind chill values, this six-county North Central Kansas area endured one of its overall most significant, but brief cold blasts of the last 30+ years during these days shortly before Christmas, with the harshest wind chills focused between the evening of the 21st and the morning of the 23rd. Based on observations from the AWOS at Smith Center Municipal Airport, which reasonably represented conditions across the area as a whole, most of North Central Kansas endured roughly 14 hours of extreme/rare wind chills around -30 degrees (F) or colder (Warning criteria) and around 40 straight hours of wind chills around -20 or colder (Advisory criteria). The absolute worst wind chills occurred on the morning of the 22nd, during which time nearly the entire area saw values plummet into the -35 to -40 range, including semi-official extremes as low as -40 at Smith Center Airport (AWOS), -39 near Jewell (KSU mesonet) and -38 near Phillipsburg (KSU mesonet). Although some places faced very similar wind chills less than two years prior (during the significant, more prolonged cold blast of mid-February 2021), at least parts of the area likely hadn't experienced wind chills this brutal in over 30 years...since the winter of 1989-90! Digging a bit deeper into the comparison between the sheer magnitude of the cold/wind chills between this Dec. 2022 Extreme Cold event and the aforementioned Feb. 2021 event, this one was certainly driven more by strong winds and less-so by extreme ambient air temperatures. In fact, actual low temperatures across most of North Central Kansas on the morning of the 22nd only bottomed out in the -10 to -15 range. As a result, the extreme wind chill values were significantly driven by relentless north-northwest winds. During the entire 14-hour period that the Smith Center AWOS observed wind chills of -30 or colder (centered between the late evening of the 21st and the afternoon of the 22nd), sustained speeds averaged 20-30 MPH, accompanied by frequent gusts at least 30-35 MPH. Although most of the area saw wind chills climb to slightly warmer than -20 by mid-day on the 23rd (due to the combination of slowly-rising temperatures and decreasing winds), at least sporadic wind chills as cold as -10 to -15 persisted from the night of the 23rd into the morning of the 24th, after which time the final Wind Chill Advisory was allowed to expire. Interestingly, this brief-but-intense cold blast was actually followed by a steady warm-up into and beyond Christmas itself. Again referencing Smith Center data (generally representative of North Central Kansas as a whole), the daily high temperatures bottomed out at -4 degrees on the 22nd, but then steadily recovered to 12 degrees on the 23rd, 26 on the 24th and 35 on the 25th. In fact, less than a week after the brutal cold of the 22nd, North Central Kansas highs soared into the 50s (and even isolated low 60s) on the 28th.
Although the bitterly-cold wind chills were certainly the main weather story in North Central Kansas between the 21st-24th, the early part of this time frame also featured one of the area's first semi-impactful winter precipitation events of the season. To kick things off, much of the daylight hours on the 21st brought a light mix of snow/freezing drizzle. However, the main event transpired during the overnight hours, as a west-southwest to east-northeast oriented band of moderate to briefly-heavy snow gradually marched across the area, developing slightly behind the leading edge of a powerful Arctic cold front. This snow band mainly impacted the area between 11 PM and 5 AM before departing off to the south-southeast. Although the heaviest snow only lasted around two hours at any given location, this was long enough to drop a widespread 1-2 (isolated slightly higher), with visibility commonly reduced to at least one-half mile at times thanks to strong north winds sustained 25-30 MPH/gusting up to around 45 MPH. Though falling snow exited North Central Kansas before daybreak on the 22nd, the combination of residual blowing snow and the aforementioned extreme cold/wind chills made for a most unpleasant weather situation for the morning commute. Briefly touching on the meteorological background behind this Extreme Cold event, the aforementioned sharp Arctic front blasted through the area from north-to-south during the evening of the 21st. During the day on the 22nd, the still strong (but slowly decreasing) winds were driven by a stout pressure gradient directed between a roughly 1011 millibar low centered over northeast AR/southeast MO (along the cold front) and a stout 1055 millibar high centered over MT.