By TOMMY REZAC
St. Joseph Post
Strong winds continues gust across a large portion of the Central Plains, with snow now mixing in.
This has prompted Blizzard Warnings for portions of northwest Missouri, including Maryville and Rock Port, until Friday evening. The rest of northwest Missouri and northeast Kansas are in a Winter Weather Advisory until 6 p.m. Friday.
National Weather Service meteorologist Taylor Nicolaisen says the forecast has changed quickly over the last couple of days.
"It's been this ramp-up over the last 36 hours or so and it's getting uglier," Nicolaisen said. "We're expecting blizzard conditions, based on the fact the winds will be so strong. Because of that, the visibility is going to be really reduced.
"We don't like to use the term 'blizzard conditions' all that much, but that's what we're expecting. White-out conditions at times and visibility impacted for at least a few hours."
Nicolaisen, who works out of the NWS office in Omaha/Valley, NE, says the worst impacts occurred during the Friday morning commute, with blizzard conditions occurring off and on throughout the day.
Snow totals across the northwest Missouri region are expected to be in the 2-4 inch range.
Snow is expected to taper off and move out of the area by Friday evening, but travel during the day Friday is highly discouraged.
"Boy, it doesn't take much snow to fall in a 50 mph wind gust to white things out in a hurry and make you wish that you were home," Nicolaisen said.
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