By MIKE CORN

mcorn@dailynews.net

Today would be a good day to play like Santa, making a list and checking it twice, because it's going to be slow -- if not impossible -- going Tuesday.

A big weather system setting up over southeast Colorado promises to bring strong waves of snow into the Hays area tonight and into Tuesday, dumping as much as 10 inches of snow in areas -- coupled with sustained winds of 25 to 30 mph. Wind gusts will top that.

While it's still fall, the weather moving in certainly is going to make it look like it's winter.

"There's going to be extreme blowing, piling up, drifting," said Marc Russell, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Dodge City. "It will be a typical winter storm, clearing the road and it will close right up behind them."

Already, a winter storm warning has been issued from 6 p.m. today until midnight Tuesday, not only for the Hays area but for much of northern Kansas and into Nebraska.

In fact, snowfall north of Hays has the potential to be even higher, with forecasters suggesting a foot or more of snow could fall in the Stockton, Phillipsburg, Osborne and Smith Center areas. The Oberlin and Hill City areas are expected to receive anywhere from 10 to 12 inches of snow.

Because temperatures in the Hays area already are cold, thanks to a brief bout of weather Sunday that dropped light freezing drizzle and a skiff of snow, any precipitation later today should start out as snow.

Sunday's storm was more of a bother, making travel hazardous but not impossible.

There was a series of accidents reported to the Kansas Highway Patrol, but only a handful of injury accidents reported along Interstate 70. Three of those accidents were reported in Ellis County.

One Ellis County accident, about 9 miles west of Hays, occurred when Janice Y. Hutchinson, 62, Junction City, attempted to pass a vehicle, hit a patch of ice and went into the ditch, overturning. The vehicle came to rest on its wheels. Hutchinson and her three passengers all were taken to Hays Medical Center.

Another accident in Gove County sent a Centennial, Colo., woman to Gove County Medical Center when her vehicle skidded on ice and hit a fence. Two other accidents in Ellis County were weather-related, causing vehicles to overturn, sending drivers to the hospital for treatment.

Snow from the incoming weather system should start falling later today, but amounts will be light.

The real surge of snow, Russell said, should start in earnest Tuesday morning and continue throughout the day.

The current path of the storm, he said, should put the heavy snowfall in Rush, Ellis and Russell counties. But no one will be spared, as the system will fan out and drop significant amounts to the west and east.

"Some places are going to get 6 to 8 inches, possibly 10," he said. "Depends on where the bands set up."

As the name suggests, those are simply bands of snow that can be responsible for varying amounts of snow falling within a relatively short distance apart.

The bands can be responsible for 10 inches of snow in one area, while just 30 miles away only 5 inches might fall.

The real problem will develop in the afternoon when the winds pick up.

While the winds are expected to be strongest to the west of Hays, sustained winds of 25 mph and gusts up to 35 mph are expected in the Hays area.

That will result in near-blizzard conditions.

To meet the definition of blizzard conditions, sustained winds of 35 mph are needed.