1/19/07-1/21/07 FCST: NM / TX / OK / KS / AR / MO / NE / IA / IL / ETC(WINTER PRECIP)

[Austin Ivey]

This storm could break Lubbock's all-time snow records:

Maximum Snowfall in 24 hours: 16.3" January 20-21, 1983
Maximum Snowfall from a single storm: 16.9" January 20-21, 1983

Take a look at the days this record was set....kind of ironic eh???

 

[Bart_Comstock]

Shouldnt Arkansas be included in the title for this thread, seeing as how it looks like we may get close to half a foot in some parts of NW Ark?

 

[Bill Schintler]

Winter WX to affect Eastern IA Sunday...

A winter storm will affect the eastern Iowa area starting early Sunday morning. Cedar Rapids: Snowfall will start at 7 AM Sunday and taper to flurries by 5 PM after accumulating to 4 inches of new snow. Iowa City: Snowfall will start at 6 AM Sunday and taper to flurries by 4 PM after accumulating to 5 inches of new snow. Discussion: Vort. max. associated with upper-low over the Baja area will slowly eject towards the Midwest over the next two days as height falls move into the Pacific Northwest and then towards the Upper-Midwest through the period. The vort. Will then transition through the developing large-scale trough over the western half of the CONUS. After 06Z Sunday, dynamical fields will increase dramatically over the southwest half of IA with good omega in the dendritic layer over southeastern IA. Temperatures will be well below freezing through all layers of the atmosphere and thermal profiles indicate snow ratios between 12-1 and 16-1. Current indications suggest best forcing will last less then eight hours while dry-slotting moves in from the southwest late in the period. It is possible that a deformation zone may develop along and just south of I-80 in eastern IA, which may may lead to locally higher precipitation totals. Overall model agreement (NAM-WRF, GFS, and UKMET) has been favorable over the last three runs while being consistent with the features of this system. - bill

 

[Rich Thompson]

Observed 00z soundings at OUN and AMA are a little warmer around 750 mb than corresponding NAM 0-h soundings at 00z. Early observations from SW OK/NW TX reveal quite a few locations with rain/freezing rain and not snow, thus the warm nose appears to be a problem. I have doubts that temperature profiles will cool much given that were nearing saturation already, so the snow totals could be a bit less than expected along the I-44 corridor in OK. The best hope for accumulating snow will be cooling the warm nose through melting with relatively high precip rates, and cold ground acting to slow melting at the surface.

Rich T.

 

[Mike Umscheid]

Dodge City's first 1" snow event!

Wow, I'm starting to really like the looks of the track of the 500mb vort and the shift from a neutrally tilted system to negatively tilted...for me here in Dodge City...essentially allowing the development of a nice "trowal" airstream north of the cyclone path... This could be a surprise little snowstorm for here in Dodge... every model run has come in with more QPF... there could be heavy snowfall rates late tomorrow into tomorrow evening... there may be an 8-10" hit farther northwest than the models indicate of this mid level cyclone matures and occludes the way the 00z/20 NAM and GFS indicate.. I'll be blogging a few posts on this one on my website (http://www.underthemeso.com/blog)

Mike U

 

[Jay McCoy]

I am still sticking with my 12"+ for Amarillo. We finally transitioned over to all snow about 830pm CDT with a pretty heavy band that moved through dumping dollar sized flakes that quickly covered the roads and grass. Small break right now but another large area moving in from Hereford in the next hour or so. We ended up with less than a 1/4" of ice and sleet before the snow started. Now i dont see the snow ending until late saturday night with QPF of still between 1"-1.5" and the warm layer eroded it should stack up well. Much better than ice!!

To see Amarillo roads live here is a link to TxDots highway webcams around amarillo
http://amaits.dot.state.tx.us/its-cameras/?Speed=High

 

[Rich Thompson]

This winter event in central OK is a classic example of the the weaknesses of deterministic (yes/no) versus probabilistic forecasts. Discussions with other meteorologists back on Wed-Thu revealed a wide range of possibilities for precip type, and we loosely assigned probabilities to each type. Given the marginal temperature profiles and simple climatology, we came up with chances for just about anything, and nothing in particular came close to dominating the probabilities.

The variation in precip types at my house this morning has underscored that uncertainty. We've experienced a mix of rain, freezing rain and sleet, though ice accumulations have been almost trivial because surface temperatures are right at 32 F. I suspect Norman will end up with no significant impacts from this storm, except for tough driving conditions where it rains on remaining ice patches. Meanwhile, the OKC metro area has been bracing for 5-10" of snow as if it were a near certainty...

Rich T.

 

[Dan Dawson]

I've also experienced a mix of rain/freezing rain at my apartment in SE Norman, and the temperature has risen to just above freezing. There is a light ice glaze on bushes and trees, but nowhere else. The 12Z OUN sounding showed a small warm layer straddling 800 mb of about 2 degrees Celsius max. If we don't get a changeover to snow soon, our snowfall potential here in Norman is in real jeopardy. I'm thinking as some of the heavier precipitation moves in, we might be able to cool that warm layer off enough through lift and melting to changeover. This is seriously about as close to the edge as you can get as far as rain/snow differentiation is concerned! We will see...