Insider Blog

Our recent cold snap has brought an areawide hard freeze, even enough to freeze over some local lakes. As of January 17th, Stephen’s Lake is open for recreation and skating with the minimum required ice depth of 4″ recorded. More frigid temperatures in the short-term forecast should keep this ice around for some time, but

Missouri agriculture is varied like our weather patterns, and it will also change with the warming climate. Shifting precipitation and temperatures will have sweeping effects on the environment and the food we can grow locally. Over recent decades Missouri has seen less extreme winter cold and hotter summers that change what plants can thrive in

With an impactful winter storm possible next week, preparation might be on your mind. Most people are familiar with roadways and side-walks looking like this each winter. But just how does this salt help clear your roadways? Water in it’s liquid form consist of loosely packed molecules. This allows for it to flow easily and fit the

Portions of Mid-Missouri could see the potential of more snowfall this weekend as a wintry mix pushes in with a passing low pressure system Saturday morning. Even though there isn’t looking to be much of anything in terms of accumulation, understanding rain to snowfall ratios can help meteorologist and forecasters tune in their forecast. A

You might have heard the saying “No two snowflakes are exactly the same.” This is actually a true statement. Snowflakes all look different, but can be categorized into the 35 separate categories. In the beginning of their formation process, they all start as the same six-sided Basal Facet, which is known as their originally shaped

If you have any holiday travel plans, things could get interesting for you this year as an active weather pattern is in store for much of the United States. Looking across the country at current flight delays and cancellations the numbers aren’t looking too bad tonight. There is a wide variety of delays, but not

It’s no surprise that we have been losing daylight the deeper we have made our way towards winter. And we are going to continue this pattern for just one more day. Tomorrow marks the winter solstice for the northern hemisphere kicking off winter. The winter solstice occurs December 21st for 2023. There are four main

If you made your way out the door anytime earlier today, you might have had your breath taken away by the cold winds. Strong wind gusts up to 30 mph and cool highs into the mid-30s lead to lower wind chills earlier today. You might be asking yourself, “What is wind chill and why does

Drought has been the name of the game in Mid-MO for the majority of this year. Dry conditions first crept into the area in late spring and this same drought has now followed us to the winter. Heavy rain events have been hard to come by with every month this year (August aside) receiving less

Approaching Mid-December means many people have Christmas on their mind. With Christmas many people think of snow and look forward to the prospect of a White Christmas. What is it looking like for Christmas of 2023? In Columbia, we see a 22% chance of having a “White Christmas.” A white Christmas is defined by an

While many have already gone out for the holidays to get a Christmas tree, some might have considered bringing a live tree in. While these real trees don’t produce any plastics or metals they’re only usable for one year compared to artificial trees, so which is really better? When shopping for trees longevity isn’t the

As rain turns to snow you may find yourself heading outside with a yardstick to see if the snow matched the forecast. Most just keep these reports for curiosity but these can be extremely helpful in verifying and improving winter weather forecasting. Sending in reports to local meteorologists is useful but getting accurate reports is

If you had the chance to be outside anytime this afternoon, you got to experience the well above average temperatures and plenty of sunshine this afternoon. The high temperature this afternoon topped out at 68 degrees at Columbia Regional Airport which is known as the official observation station for Columbia. This puts the high this