Winter Weather — Jackson, Missouri

2019-02-15 · Jackson, Missouri

Event narrative

After a couple hours of moderate to heavy snow, around 3 to 4 inches accumulated on local roads, including I-70 just east of Kansas City. The slick roads and highly reduced visibility caused a massive pile up at the Oak Grove exit on WB I-70. Several injuries occurred in this accident and one fatality occurred in the carnage that ensued. The pile up received high profile coverage on national media as a trucker caught up in the wreck took video from inside his cab. That video can be found at the following link.

https://twitter.com/Dantej21/status/1096550488714170368 .

Wider weather episode

Light to moderate snow began falling across the region in the mid to late morning hours on Friday February 15, 2019. By the early afternoon heavy snow had been falling for a couple hours and area roads became impassible. Reduced visibility due to the heavy snow prevented vehicles already on local roads from seeing hazards in their path, which resulted in several injury accidents. The worst of these accidents came on Interstate 70 near the Oak Grove exit around 11:30 am when a massive pileup resulted in numerous injuries as well as one fatality. By mid to late afternoon the snow had moved off to the east, leaving behind roughly 3 to 5 inches.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 797740. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.