The first snow of the season is always exciting for those who like the snow and a stark reality check that it’s that time of year again for those who don’t like it.

Last week, we began to blog about the potential for this rain/snow mix at temperatures over the freezing mark at the surface.

Even still, it sometimes takes the actual sight of the flakes to really conjure up all the feelings that people have about the snow. Granted, most of Northeast Kansas saw very little accumulation … or at least very brief coverings of snow. But areas along US-36 (near the Nebraska border) saw up to a foot of snow.

One of the reasons that we can see such a wide range in the snow totals has to do with the “banding” of snowfall in this type of storm system. Each band of snow pivots around the large upper-level low and often they do not swipe the whole area, but are oriented in a way that the snow band moves over one strip of the area (in this case the area near the Nebraska border) while just a few miles away the ground is bare.

Sure, it makes for a difficult forecast, but I wouldn’t trade Kansas weather for anything in the world. I think we’ve got it good here with all four seasons.