A Snowy end to January for Southern Kansas

By: NWS Wichita

A potent winter storm system blanketed southern Kansas with Snow on January 28th and 29th. A deep upper level trough moved off of Baja, California and moved eastward over Arizona and New Mexico and slowly lifted into the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles. The moisture ahead of this trough lead to significant precipitation in all forms over the southern central plains.

This winter storm began over the Texas Panhandle, and slowly moved eastward and northward into eastern Oklahoma and southern portions of Kansas. Snow began in southern Kansas late afternoon/early evening on Thursday the 28th. Later Thursday evening and overnight a band of moderate snow set up on the north side of Wichita to the Hutchinson/Newton/Hillsboro area. This band of snow dropped snow amounts in the 5 to 8 inch range. By Friday morning a secondary band set up on the west side of Reno county up into McPherson county which caused another couple of inches to fall. Friday afternoon, the snowfall kicked it in to high gear in the southern most Kansas counties, bordering Oklahoma. Snow fall intensified and moderate to heavy snowfall was seen over Sumner, Cowley, Chautauqua, Elk, Wilson, Neosho, Montgomery, and Labette counties. Snowfall rates were between an inch to 2 inches per hour at times.

Satellite Image Taken Saturday afternoon January 30th, 2010 showing snow cover over Southern Kansas and Oklahoma.

Snow Depth taken 10 Miles north of El Dorado Picture courtesy of Charlene Miller Butler County Emergency Management

Picture by JD Stewart of Snow covering Highway 400 near Dennis KS in Labette County Snow measured 7 inches in Dennis.