TOPEKA — A powerful low-pressure system that brought heavy rains and freak floods to Southern California won’t bring a pre-Christmas blizzard into eastern Kansas. Instead, the Topeka office of the National Weather Service predicts that the powerful storm will waltz across the Texas panhandle and slam-dance the East Coast. The Ottawa area will get a winter ballet Thursday night, weather forecaster Chad Omitt said. Temperatures will likely remain above freezing most of the day, which means that the light rain and drizzle that could fall on the area won’t freeze, he said. The temperatures may fall enough to cause freezing drizzle or light sleet early Friday, he said. That would change into light snow during Friday. There could be more ice and freezing drizzle north of 1-70 and up to four inches of snow north and east of Kansas, he said. However, The storm will clobber the eastern U.S. on Christmas, he said. Anyone who’s travelling north and east of Kansas needs to check weather forecasts and be more careful, he said.
Wednesday, Dec. 22, 5 p.m.
