Seems to Be Real...

Check out this verbiage from the National Weather Service's scientifical discussion with regard to the incoming storm system.

One of the strongest and highest impact storms of recent history will begin to move into and through the region tomorrow. By the early morning hours...widespread convective development will occur over the Southern Plains. Through the morning...strong positive vorticity advection combined with the intense development of a coupled jet structure will allow an expansive area of snow to develop in Oklahoma...Kansas and Missouri. This area will rapidly expand NE Tuesday morning. Numerous signals exist as to the potential for convective snow fall across the southeastern County Warning Area...and will expand thunderstorms and rain mention for much of Tuesday. Snowfall rates could exceed 2-4" per hour at times.

I am as skeptical as any one about "big storms" in the Midwest since a slight deviation in anything can change the track and impact of the storm. Then there's this...

An unbelievable amount of cold air will drain down the Front Range in the wake of this system. Feel highs on Wednesday will only reach the single digits to lower teens in the southeast. Lows Wednesday night have full potential to fall below zero. A light 5 to 10 knot surface wind may lead to widespread advisory wind chills and the potential for one of the first wind chill warnings in many years in the northern County Warning Area.

So after the snow, comes a few days of really cold weather. In addition, the scientific types at NWS add this, under the simple word of "Hazards."

The most dangerous aspect of this storm system will come in the form of its very high slr and development of strong pgf winds Tuesday and Tuesday night. Have followed several tools for forecasting blizzards today...and the overwhelming suggestion is that blizzard or near blizzard criteria may be met over a large portion of the County Warning Area Tuesday and Tuesday night. With a 1050 high in the Western Plains and the developing of a 993 mb low in the MO bootheel the resultant surface pressure gradient will approach 50 to as much as 70 microbars/km by Tuesday evening. Whats even more concerning is the suggestion of a channel of 50-55 knot winds at the 850mb level on the backside of the developing upper low. Given potential surface-850 lapse rates approaching 7 to 8 c/km per adjusted NAM/GFS guidance feel mix down potential is elevated to high. Thus...will be issuing a fairly widespread Blizzard Warning for Tuesday and Tuesday night. Winds this strong regardless of the amount of snow will be life threatening...and will lead to severe drifting of heavy snow.

What that means is that it will snow a lot and be wicked windy. With regard to accumulations, the meteorologists say this:

This potentially historic storm has the potential for widespread foot or more snows...especially in areas east of the Interstate 35 corridor. Models and ensembles suggest the heaviest corridor from Nevada to Columbia and into the northestern corner of MO...where I wouldn't be shocked to see totals approach 20 inches or more. Further west and northwest the gradient will relax...but very significant snow totals up to 10 inches will be likely.

The Kansas City metro is not necessarily included in that heavy corridor--that is a bit south and east of us, but 10-15 inches seems to be the forecast du jour. Kansas City, KS and points north and west of KCK may "only" get 8 inches!

So at Casa Observer, we are stocked up for a couple of days, making it not required to leave the house. As I said before, regular blogging and commenting may be disrupted! There will be Facebook activity--perhaps even a photo or two.

If this thing looks like it's pointed at you, you might want to consider some ahead of time preparations. Just in case. Just saying.