Wind advisories have ended for area counties, but blustery conditions remain as biting cold has replaced four straight days of record late-year warmth.
After temperatures near 70 shortly before midnight and temperatures in the mid-60s as late as 6 am, a powerful cold front has driven air temperatures down to the low 20s. Wind gusts between 40-50 mph for much of the afternoon have pushed wind chills into the single digits and also caused some blowing snow conditions after a dusting of snow fell Sunday afternoon. Icy spots have been reported on US Highway 56 from Admire east to the Lyon-Osage county line and on Kansas Highway 99 from US-56 north to Westmoreland.
Temperatures will settle in the mid-teens overnight, but northerly wind gusts of 15-30 mph will keep wind chills near or below zero all night.
Monday will have highs in the low 30s and wind chills in the teens, thanks to northwest winds up to 30 mph.
Shortly after the cold front barreled across the area, Emporia Fire and Evergy scrambled into emergency response mode. Emporia Fire responded to a small grass fire at Interstate 35 mile marker 127 around 7:40 am. The fire was out as crews arrived to investigate. Almost immediately after going available, Emporia Fire and Americus responded to a reported grass fire near Roads 200 and F-5, but that turned out to be a smoldering log pile with no active grass fire.
Evergy, meanwhile, had to restore an outage that knocked out power to over 2,600 customers right about the time of the I-35 grass fire. Most of the customers were offline in west Emporia, but others were affected well to the southeast of town. The outage was restored by 10 am. Other, much smaller-scale outages developed near Osage City, Lyndon and Waverly through the day.
5:40 am Sunday: Windy, sharply colder Sunday ends four-day streak of record warmth for area counties
Our four-day run of record warmth is ending abruptly.
Emporia has had record high temperatures since Christmas Eve’s high of 70 degrees, followed by 74 on Christmas, 71 on Friday and 75 Saturday. Even Saturday night’s overnight low of 57 is 15 degrees above the average daytime high.
That is all changing.
A powerful cold front is driving down temperatures down for the rest of Sunday. Temperatures in the mid-60s as of 5 am will crash to the upper 20s by sunset and mid-teens for overnight lows. Windy conditions are attached with northwesterly winds at 20-30 mph steadily and gusts between 40-50 mph through sunset, dying back slightly to gusts between 30-40 mph into Monday. Wind chills by early evening could be in the low teens, with overnight wind chills near to slightly below zero. Unsecured objects will likely get blown around, with power outages expected and travel likely difficult for high-profile vehicles all day.
Wind advisories affect all area counties Sunday. Lyon and most surrounding counties are involved until 4 pm. The exceptions, Chase and Greenwood, are included until 6 pm.
The front also brings slight chances of a wintry precipitation mix including rain, snow and/or sleet into early afternoon. Chances of measurable accumulations are slight, thus likely continuing a dry period that has seen no measurable amounts since Nov. 30.
Monday will have high temperatures in the low 30s before highs climb to the mid-40s Tuesday and low 50s Wednesday. No precipitation is in the forecast aside from Sunday’s slight chance.
KVOE and KVOE.com will have updates.
1:20 pm Saturday
The National Weather Service is anticipating a blustery end to the Christmas holiday weekend across the KVOE listening area.
NWS has issued a wind advisory for Lyon, Coffey, Morris, Osage and Wabaunsee counties from 6 am to 4 pm Sunday. The advisory comes with forecasts calling for steady winds between 20-30 mph throughout the day with gusts possibly as high as 50 mph at times.
The winds will be blowing in more seasonable conditions to the area with air temperatures expected to dip below 30 degrees by the late afternoon hours Sunday. Highs through New Year’s Day are expected to fluctuate between the mid 30s to low 50s with a high of 38 currently expected come January 1.
Stay with KVOE, KVOE.com and KVOE social media for more updates as they develop.
