By TOMMY REZAC
St. Joseph Post
Another round of bitterly cold temperatures will impact northwest Missouri and northeast Kansas on Wednesday night into Thursday.
A Wind Chill Advisory is in effect from midnight until noon Thursday for far southeast Nebraska and most of northeast Kansas and northwest Missouri. Wind chills late Wednesday and early Thursday can be as low as 15 degrees below zero.
"That's not what the actual temperatures are," National Weather Service meteorologist Jared Leighton said. "The actual temperature will be around zero, but with the wind around 10-20 mph, it'll cause the hypothermia and frost bite process to speed up quite a bit more if it was just zero degrees."
There's a slight chance of snow late Wednesday night, but accumulations are not expected. Highs on Thursday will only reach the low teens, and northwest winds of 15-25 mph will continue through the day.
Lows will hit the single digits Thursday night before temperatures rebound into the 20s for Friday and then the mid 40s by Saturday.
Leighton says the first half of winter has been drier and warmer than normal, which could be an indication of what to expect going forward.
"So far, it's been incredibly warm," Leighton said. "I think our December was in third place for the warmest December of all time. That goes back to the late 1880s. With the outlook being warm and dry for the middle part of (January), it looks pretty likely we'll get halfway through the winter season without much in the way of impact."
The entire region saw its first shot of significant snow fall over the New Years Day weekend, though most areas saw less snow than what was forecast. St. Joseph reported around three inches, the Kansas City Airport had two, while portions of Worth and Harrison counties near the Iowa line reported six inch totals.
Leighton reminds people that the forecast can always rapidly change during this time of year.
"All it takes is one big system to make all of that up and turn it into a pretty average year and be pretty impactful."
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