The State Emergency Management Agency and National Weather Service are partnering to promote winter safety during Winter Weather Preparedness Week. This will involve daily social media posts from Monday to Friday focused on snow, ice, extreme cold and emergency planning.
“I encourage residents to take extra precautions to protect themselves and their families,” SEMA director Jim Remillard said in a news release.
Despite the unusually warm temperatures this fall, Mark Fuchs, senior service hydrologist for the NWS in St. Louis, said severe winter weather becomes a higher possibility starting in November.
“We don’t want to wait till the last minute to put out that kind of information,” Fuchs said. “It is better to have that on hand early.”
SEMA and the six NWS forecast offices that serve Missouri will post on social media throughout the week, with a different focus area each day.
- Monday will cover winter weather terminology
- Tuesday will cover ice safety
- Wednesday will cover snow safety
- Thursday will cover hypothermia, extreme cold and frostbite
- Friday will cover how to plan for snow, ice and cold
The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services reported that hypothermia deaths were 68% higher from 2024 to 2025, totaling 64 individual deaths in 2025. The Missouri State Highway Patrol reported more than 3,699 vehicle crashes in 2025 during winter weather.
“(If) you're stuck outside and you have no vehicle to get you from one place to the next, you can be exposing yourself to a very dangerous, life-threatening situation,” Fuchs said.
The NWS recommends preparing home and vehicle emergency kits with multiple days of food, water and warm clothes. Residents should avoid nonessential travel during severe winter weather and check road conditions using the Missouri Department of Transportation’s Traveler Map.
The NWS warns that being outdoors in extreme cold could be dangerous and recommends taking extra breaks when doing physical activity, such as shoveling snow, and dressing warmly when going outside.
The NWS website and acting State Fire Marshal Greg Carrell also recommend checking smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, keeping generators outside of buildings and avoiding diesel or gasoline-powered heaters.
Additional weather safety information is available on the NWS website.