Remembering West Central Missouri’s Blizzard of 2011
We've been lucky in West Central Missouri the past couple of years when it's come to snow. It seems the snow has missed us. Not completely, but for the most part I've been able to just let the snow melt off my driveway. Ten years ago, it was a different story as a monster blizzard hammered West Central Missouri.
It started Tuesday February 1 and continued into Wednesday February 2. According to the National Weather Service, "Northeast Oklahoma, Eastern Kansas, much of Missouri, and northern Illinois were the hardest hit with one of the strongest blizzards ever to impact the region from Kansas City to Chicago." And while I wouldn't wish nine to twelve inches of snow on anyone, Kansas City got off lucky compared to Warrensburg and Sedalia.
Unofficial snow totals compiled from weather observers throughout West Central Missouri reported 21 inches of snow in Sedalia, 23 inches of snow in Warrensburg and 19 inches of snow in Boonville.
The storm also shut down Interstate 70. In a St. Louis Post Dispatch article Jack Wang, a spokesman for MoDOT, told the paper the shut down was like no other in recent memory. "I-70 has been shut down in spots before, he said, but usually for shorter time periods because of crashes."
The snow wasn't the only problem either, 35-40 mile per hour winds hammered the region and blew the snow all over the place reducing visibility to zero and drifting snow in many areas. Wind gusts in Kansas City reached 47mph and 46mph in Lee's Summit and 35mph at Whiteman Airforce Base.
This past weekend the Chicago area got hammered with what the Chicago Tribune is calling the "snowiest storm in five years." We got a gray, chilly, rainy weekend. We were lucky. I'll take that over snow any day of the week.