AccuWeather's Tony Laubach reported live from Hays, Kansas, on Feb. 18, amid extreme cold and blowing snow.
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00:00First, let's go ahead and go to Hayes,
00:02Kansas, an area that's been getting
00:03hammered with this latest winter storm
00:05and Accuweather's meteorologist Tony
00:07Loback joins us now with a closer
00:09look at what's going on.
00:10He's always got something fun to show us,
00:12so I'm ready for it, Tony.
00:17Well, I'm not showing a lot of myself
00:19as you can tell here, because we
00:21would have at 3 o'clock here in Hayes.
00:23The Accuweather real field temperature
00:24right now at 3 o'clock in the
00:27afternoon is 31 below zero,
00:28so wrap your head around that.
00:30If you want to, you talk about
00:31folks probably sick of the snow.
00:33I would imagine it's probably
00:34not so much the snow.
00:36It's the unbearable cold.
00:37That is what everybody is
00:38sick and tired of right now.
00:39Me, I'm kind of having the time of my life.
00:42Let's be real here.
00:43This is good stuff here.
00:44This one of the roads you might be
00:46able to see off in the background there.
00:48That snow blowing across the road.
00:49That is pretty much a common
00:51site all over the place here in
00:53Hayes were sitting roughly 3 to 4 inches.
00:54We picked up a pretty good band here
00:56and we were sitting about two,
00:58so we've doubled it since then,
00:59but other areas further to the South
01:01have certainly seen their share of snow.
01:02We're going to take it down to Great Bend,
01:05Kansas this about an hour or so.
01:06Southeast of us here in Hayes and we
01:08saw some pretty heavy snows a lot of that.
01:11Overnight we had a pretty solid band
01:12that set up dumping anywhere between
01:14four and eight inches of snow down there,
01:16and they continued to add to
01:17that throughout the day.
01:18Would not shock me at all to see
01:20some double digit snow totals in
01:22portions of central Kansas,
01:23especially in areas that have seen
01:25multiple bands of snow set up.
01:26It's been varied in terms of accumulation,
01:28depending on how far North or South you go.
01:31Some places I ran through maybe an inch or two.
01:33Other places I ran into 8 inches plus,
01:35so it was a very, very wide band.
01:38A very tough forecast.
01:39You know when you talk about the
01:41local meteorologist here,
01:41I was one in the Wichita area
01:43forecasted for this area.
01:45Events like this were always tricky
01:46because you generally kind of try
01:48to get everybody hey in this range
01:50of snow and then some people just
01:52get under one of these bands and
01:54it just doubles that amount in a hurry.
01:56So some of that snow coming down pretty heavy.
01:58It is a powdery snow.
02:01You can you can talk about like how
02:03different of a snow this is and you
02:05kind of see it right here just how
02:07powdery and fine this is like pixie
02:09dust snow not really good for snowmaking,
02:13snowmen, snowball fights,
02:14anything along that lines.
02:15But like I mentioned here,
02:16it does do a pretty good job
02:18blowing across the road,
02:19so visibility an issue on a lot
02:21of the area highways,
02:22especially if you get behind a semi truck.
02:24That's kicking up a lot of that.
02:25You're going to probably see some video
02:26here throughout the rest of the evening
02:28that I've shot where I've been stuck
02:29behind semi trucks or other vehicles,
02:31and they just pick up that snow on
02:33the backside of that and really,
02:35really lowers your visibility.
02:36So those kind of often lead to some
02:38of those rear end crashes.
02:39If you don't see the car ahead of you,
02:40stop for some reason,
02:41making a turn or whatever.
02:42So if you're on the road,
02:43certainly take it slow.
02:44Wouldn't advise to do it anyway.
02:46If you're talking about just
02:47the temperatures right now,
02:49you don't want to be stranded
02:50out in this for any reason.
02:51Fortunately did not see anybody
02:53in a very long circle.
02:55I had from here down South and back
02:56around that had any traffic issues,
02:58so nobody had ditches
02:59or anything like that.
03:00So that is some good news.
03:01Traffic moving along what little
03:03of it there is, I will say.
03:04So that is some good news,
03:06but that cold going to stick
03:07around till Thursday,
03:08even as the snow ends later today.
03:11Alright, stay warm there Tony for us.
03:13Yeah, go warm up now.