Winter storm moves into Missouri from Plains

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) -- The winter storm that hit Kansas with heavy, wet snow and strong winds moved into Missouri Tuesday night and was working its way across the central portion of the state on Wednesday.

Winds which gusted to 40 miles an hour and even higher took the overnight wind chill factor down to around zero.

Rain which preceded the snowfall in some areas left many roads slick, causing cars and trucks to slide off.

"When it's blowing like this, it just drifts across the road, and you'd be on ice before you know it," said truck driver Billy Watkins, taking a break at a truck stop in Kearney, Mo., north of Kansas City. "You can get yourself in trouble real quick."

Two traffic deaths were reported in Kansas, one on Interstate 70 in Ellworth County in a crash involving a car and a tractor-trailer, the other in Shawnee County on an Interstate 70 entrance ramp east of Topeka.

A section of the Interstate was closed for a time in Ellsworth County, and about seven stranded motorists spent the night at an emergency shelter in Ellworth.

"They said it's pretty messy out there," said John Degand, volunteer chairman for the North Central Kansas chapter of the American Red Cross.

The storm slowed traffic in the Kansas City metro area, with a number of vehicles off snow-packed roads. Although the snow had moved on to the east before dawn, the Kansas City, Mo., public schools called off classes for Wednesday, as did most other school districts in the area, including the Shawnee Mission District in Johnson County, Kan., and the Lee's Summit district on the Missouri side.

John Woynick, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Topeka, said snowfall totals in Kansas ranged up to around 6 inches in some north central sections of the state. Russell, Salin and Ellsworth all had about 4 inches, Goodland about 3, Woynick said. Wichita had only about one-tenth of an inch.

"But there is so much blowing and drifting of snow it was difficult to get a good handle on some of the measurements out there," he said.

Woynick said many east-west roads had significant drifting, to the point of making some pretty much impassable in Washington County.

While the storm two weeks before the start of winter caught some people by surprise, Woynick remarked, "I wouldn't say this is out of the ordinary by any means," noting there have been heavy snow storms as early as October.

Tom Miller, riding his bike to work at a Dillon's store in Lawrence, Kan., said, "It's no problem. This isn't so bad. This is nothing compared to the winters we used to have around here back in the '70s."

Another Lawrence resident, Gloria M. Follett, thought back even further to a "horrific November snowstorm in 1948."

"It paralyzed everything in the Midwest," said Follett, who was just starting out as a teacher in St. Francis that year. "There was so much snow I couldn't even get home from Tuesday until Saturday."

Of Tuesday's weather, she said: "It's chilly. That's all."

Stores in many areas were busy with customers stocking up on supplies and things needed to cope with the storm. Dan Robb, labor manager for a construction company, was at a Lawrence hardware store to get four snow shovels.

"Everybody's got to deal with it," said Robb. "It's just a fact of life: It snows in Kansas."

At St. Joseph, Mo., Jeff Hart, a manager at the Wal-Mart Supercenter, said the store was completely sold out of sand bags, and people were also stocking up on food.

Jenny Harrison and her boyfriend, Brad Major, went to the Wal-Mart to get ice melt for her parents' driveway. Harrison said her boyfriend was looking forward to the storm, "But I think it should all just go away. I don't like it at all."

Kansas City road crews, prepped for 12-hour shifts, were salting trouble spots - the curves and hills - of residential streets and arterials into the night.

As the storm moved eastward through Missouri, it was expected to leave up to between 4 and 7 inches of snow across western and central sections of the state. Thomas Spriggs, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in St. Louis, said not much accumulation was expected for the St. Louis area.

"Any accumulation will be a dusting at this time; less than an inch if we get anything," Spriggs said.

The winter storm warning that had been in effect was replaced by a storm advisory, through mid-morning, for blowing snow that could create white-out conditions.

Lightning strikes continued to be reported during the early-morning area in portions of southwest Missouri, including around Lamar and Carthage.