Winter Weather — Osborne, Kansas

2024-03-25 to 2024-03-26 · Osborne, Kansas

Event narrative

Measured and estimated snowfall totals ranged from 1 to 4 inches.

Wider weather episode

During mainly a 24-hour period centered between 6 a.m. CDT on Monday the 25th and 6 a.m. CDT on Tuesday the 26th, this six-county North Central Kansas area endured its last hurrah of wintry precipitation for the 2023-24 season. This was not a truly major event, with most places measuring only 1-5 inches of snow along with a glaze of ice, although relentless north-northwest winds frequently gusting 35-50 MPH reduced visibility in the heavier snow bands. As for official snow amounts within the domain, a few of the highest measurements per several NWS and CoCoRaHS observers featured: 4.5 ten miles west-northwest of Stockton, 4.1 at Webster Lake Dam, 3.5 in Smith Center and 3 in Natoma. Meanwhile, along the eastern fringes of the area in far eastern Jewell/Mitchell counties, there were no local ground-truth measurements available, but NOHRSC analysis and nearby reports out of far western Republic/Cloud counties strongly suggest that a narrow, north-south band straddling the county lines likely totaled 4-6. As for icing, although detailed reports were limited, the NWS Cooperative Observer in Lebanon reported a glaze of one-tenth of an inch.

Delving deeper into this event's meteorological background and timing, the main feature in the mid-upper levels was a large-scale trough that tracked along a path centered from Colorado on the afternoon of the 24th, into the heart of Kansas/Nebraska on the 25th, and to Iowa by daybreak on the 26th. At the surface, a strong low pressure center (ranging mainly 986-992 millibars) progressed from far southeastern Colorado on the afternoon of the 24th, to northeast Kansas by daybreak on the 25th, to the IA/MN/WI border area by the morning of the 26th. With North Central Kansas positioned slightly north-through-west of this low pressure track, strong north-northwest winds were the norm on the 25th into the morning of the 26th...driving near-blizzard conditions at times. Temperatures within the area through this snow event were somewhere in the 20s F. As for timing, widespread rain (along with some non-severe thunderstorms) blossomed across much of North Central Kansas from the evening of Sunday the 24th into the pre-dawn hours of the 25th. However, through 7 a.m. CDT on the 25th, mainly only western Phillips County had changed over to snow. Following a lull in steady precipitation through much of the morning and early afternoon (except for some light freezing drizzle or flurries), the primary snow event got underway between 2-4 p.m. CDT and persisted late into the night, as a widespread shield of snow (with embedded bands of varying intensity) pivoted over the area before gradually departing/fading away between 3-6 a.m. CDT on the 26th. In the wake of this storm, the fresh snow cover did not blanket the landscape for long, as high temperatures into the 50s on the 27th and near-70 on the 28th sparked a swift melt.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1169292. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.