Weather & Natural Hazards
Winter weather & ice
Snow gets the attention, but in Missouri it's ice that does the damage. A little planning ahead — knowing the alerts, watching the roads, and heating your home the safe way — carries most households through the worst of it.
The signature hazard
Ice is what does the damage
Missouri's signature winter hazard is ice — freezing rain that glazes roads, trees, and power lines. It makes travel deadly, snaps limbs and lines, and can leave whole areas without power for days. Snow gets the attention; ice does the damage.
Learn the alerts
The current cold alerts
The current NWS cold alerts (renamed in 2024–2025): a Cold Weather Advisory means dangerous cold is expected — limit your time outside and protect people, pets, and pipes. An Extreme Cold Watch means dangerously cold air is possible. An Extreme Cold Warning means dangerously cold air is expected or happening — act. (Cold is cold: these can be issued with or without wind.)
For the storms themselves: a Winter Storm Watch means heavy snow or ice is possible; a Winter Storm Warning or an Ice Storm Warning means it's expected or happening — act. A Winter Weather Advisory means lighter winter weather that's still enough to make travel hazardous.
What "wind chill" means
Wind chill is how cold the air FEELS once the wind is figured in — and wind can bring on frostbite and hypothermia far faster than the thermometer alone suggests. Cover exposed skin, dress in layers, and watch for numbness, shivering that stops, confusion, or slurred speech.
On the road
Black ice and your winter car kit
Watch for black ice
Stay off icy roads when you can. Watch for black ice — a thin, see-through glaze that looks like wet pavement — especially on bridges and overpasses, which freeze before the road does because cold air reaches them from above and below.
Keep a winter car kit
Keep a winter car kit: blankets, warm clothes, water and snacks, a flashlight, a phone charger, a small shovel, sand or cat litter for traction, jumper cables, and an ice scraper. If you're ever stranded, stay with your vehicle.
Heat your home safely
Staying warm without carbon monoxide
When the power goes out in an ice storm, people die quietly from the ways they try to stay warm. Heat your home safely — the exact rules are in the power-outage card on this page — and the short version is simple: any generator, grill, or camp stove runs OUTSIDE only, and never heat a home with a gas oven or stovetop. Carbon monoxide is invisible, odorless, and deadly.
Carbon monoxide is the hidden killer
How to ride out a power outage safely
Generators, grills & stoves
Run a generator OUTDOORS only — more than 20 feet from every door, window, and vent, with the exhaust pointed away from the house. Never run one inside a house, garage, basement, carport, or enclosed porch, even with the doors or windows open. The same goes for grills and camp stoves, and never heat your home with a gas oven or stovetop. Carbon monoxide from these is invisible, odorless, and kills.
CO & smoke alarms, space heaters
Keep working, battery-backed carbon-monoxide and smoke alarms on every level of your home. Keep space heaters at least 3 feet from anything that can burn, and never leave one running unattended or while you sleep. If a CO alarm sounds, or anyone gets a headache, dizziness, or nausea, get everyone outside into fresh air and call 911.
Food in the fridge
Keep the refrigerator and freezer doors shut — a closed fridge holds safe temperatures about 4 hours, a full freezer about 48. When in doubt about food, throw it out.
Downed power lines
Treat every downed power line as live and deadly — stay far back, keep others back, and report it to the utility and 911. Don't drive over downed lines or through water near them.
Medical equipment
If anyone relies on powered medical equipment — oxygen, a CPAP, refrigerated medicine, a powered wheelchair — have a backup-power plan and a place to go before the outage, and tell your utility you have a medical need on the account.
Warming & cooling centers
In a long outage, communities open warming or cooling centers. Check with your county emergency management, and go early if your home is getting dangerously cold or hot.
Look out for one another
Check on your neighbors
Check on elderly neighbors, people who live alone, and anyone without heat — a knock on the door saves lives in a long cold outage.
A hard lesson
The January 2007 ice storm
A hard lesson: a major ice storm in January 2007 caused deaths, snarled travel, broke trees, and knocked out power across parts of Missouri for days.
Next
Make sure the alerts will reach you first — set up watches, warnings & alerts — and put it all together with your plan & kit. Back to the Weather & Natural Hazards hub.
When a warning is issued
Missouri Porch explains the hazard; the National Weather Service and your local officials call the warning.
Last checked: 2026-06-18. Hazards repeat, so most of this page stays true year to year — but alert-product names, the year's stats, and the ShakeOut date can change. Check the date above, and always follow the live National Weather Service warning and your local officials over anything written here.
This site explains and prepares — it is not a live warning. When a warning is issued, follow it and your local emergency officials immediately; they have the live picture. This is not insurance, legal, or medical advice. In any life-threatening emergency, call 911.
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