Author Spotlight
Aanya Bansal
Consistent below freezing temperatures in the Kansas City area throughout January are breaking low-temperature records and causing poor road conditions and increased snow days.
The average minimum temperature this January was 17 degrees Fahrenheit compared to last year’s 28 degrees Fahrenheit, according to Weather Underground. On Jan. 14, a wind chill of -35 degrees Fahrenheit was recorded at Kansas City International Airport — the lowest ever, according to KCTV.
“A lot of things seem to be going outside of their normal patterns,” University of Kansas Environmental Studies Professor Dr. Shannon O’Lear said. “In Kansas, we’re not getting as much snow [as we have in past years] but then we get this whiplash, really cold temperatures for a week where you’re not having school, so that’s not typical either.”
A snow storm following winter break resulted in five snow days in just three weeks of school. At the end of January last year, SMSD schools had only one snow day. Chief Academic Officer Dr. Darren Dennis is in charge of creating the SMSD calendar and keeping track of snow days.
“I remember snow days being spread out in the past,” Dennis said. “I can’t remember as many concentrated snow days in [three] weeks as we’ve had.”
The district has eight snow days built into the schedule, according to Dennis. If more days are needed, that time must be made up by extending the school day, eliminating late start or adding extra days to the schedule. That decision will be made by Superintendent Dr. Michelle Hubbard after the winter conditions subside.
According to O’Lear, these cold temperatures could be occurring due to unstable arctic air moving to our area of the country due to the increase in greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere.
“When you add more heat to something, you may displace some cold air because you have hot air moving into where it’s not usually going to be,” O’Lear said.
Students are feeling the effects of the extreme temperatures. Junior Jack Broghammer attended the Kansas City Chiefs wild-card game where the temperature at kickoff was -4 degrees Fahrenheit — the coldest game in Arrowhead Stadium history, according to KCTV.
Broghammer brought his ticket 40 minutes before the game for $85 compared to the average cost of $400 for a regular season game. Most of the fans, including Broghammer and his friends, were encouraged by GEHA field officials through the news and Instagram to bring cardboard to stand on for insulation. Broghammer needed several layers of socks, pants, shirts, coats and head coverings, along with hand and foot warmers to keep warm during the game.
“The stadium felt super empty because a ton of people went on to the concourse to huddle in the stores or the bathrooms or get hot chocolate,” Broghammer said. “Everyone was just trying to do what they could to stay warm.”
Other students have changed their method of transportation to school to avoid the cold. Junior Kelsey Stroud, who used to make the 10-minute walk to school every day, now drives to avoid the frigid temperatures.
“When I was a freshman, I walked the entire year,” Stroud said. “When I was a sophomore, sometimes in the winter a friend would pick me up, but other days, I would walk in the snow or the rain. It wasn’t that big of a deal. But this year, walking in this weather just feels horrible. I don’t want to do it.”
Stroud’s mom has also stopped her own daily walks due to the cold and poor sidewalk conditions.
Prairie Village Public Works Director Keith Bredehoeft manages the snow plow drivers that help Stroud and other students safely drive to school. The cold weather makes the process of clearing snow from roads, sidewalks and park trails more time-consuming since workers can’t stay out in the cold for too long. It’s also more difficult to fix problems around the city.
“Water mains have a tendency to have more breaks when the extreme temperatures happen for extended periods of time,” Bredehoeft said. “We’ve had several around Prairie Village since we’ve had that cold weather. That creates a big problem when it’s that cold because we get a lot of water on the streets and you get a lot of ice on the road from the negative temperatures.”
Similar to Broghammer at the Chiefs game, while working, Bredehoeft and his team take the necessary precautions to prevent negative side effects from the cold like frostbite and hypothermia.
“We make sure our employees are out there for only a period of time that they feel safe and they can get back in their truck or come back to the shop and spend some time warming up before they go back out,” Bredehoeft said.
Though this cold weather is extreme, Rice University Atmospheric Science Professor Dr. Daniel Cohan says it’s difficult to argue that it’s caused by climate change. The low temperatures may be independent of global warming as a whole.
“I think there’s a tendency for people to think ‘Oh, the world is warming and we just had a couple of very severe storms, are these connected to each other?” Cohan said. “But that aspect of whether we have more or less severe winter storms is still uncertain.”
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