Sunday afternoon Lincoln, NE TV stations were showing about half of the state of Nebraska as being under a blizzard or winter storm warning through at least late Tuesday into early Wednesday. By Monday afternoon nearly all of those warnings were cancelled.
Topeka NWS had this area of Kansas still under a winter weather advisory until mid day Tuesday while Omaha NWS had no such advisory in place for the Beatrice, NE area. Admittedly, the heavy snow was seen along US Highway 24 from around Manhattan to near Topeka, KS by that time. In fact, a "snow squall warning" was issued for the St. Marys, KS area just after lunch time.
This storm did what so many do on the plains by dissipating in one area area and forming stronger than predicted elsewhere. Does the NWS depend too much on models that simply cannot predict the unpredictability of winter storms in the central plains? Any prediction concerning such storms more than six hours in advance seems to be pure guess work. I don't have an answer for NWS and I get it that they're caught between providing adequate advance notice of possible severe winter weather and overstating the severity of any given storm system to the point that people will ignore the forecasts, watches and warnings. NWS seems to err on the side of overstatement.
