3/27-3/29 Blizzard

[sebenste]

Wait! Northwest Oklahoma under a PDS watch? What's so bad about that?

 

[Rocky Rascovich]

If that 30+ inches of snow in the panhandles happens, that would be a possible game changer for possible severe in a few months, wouldn't it?

This will definitely help, however, I have a friend of mine who has a big farm near Chattanooga, OK. She said their wheat crop is pretty much fried.. beyond help and that a few others she knows in parts of the TX. PH are in the same shape. Some farms were already declaring their crop a loss in some of these areas. So.. while this system may temporarily help the soil moisture problems, the fact that some of this wheat is too far damaged to be salvaged, it will just be tilled over and the fields left barren. I would think that this would mean a little less evaprotranspiration this spring. Correct me if I'm wrong on this as I'm pretty much going off of one person's info on this situation.

 

[Jason Boggs]

If that 30+ inches of snow in the panhandles happens, that would be a possible game changer for possible severe in a few months, wouldn't it?

If that 30+ inches really happens, there may still be some snow on the ground when severe weather happens in a couple of months!

 

[Patrick Martin]

Looks like a foot of snow will be a cinch for the Denver area and BOU NWS office pulled the trigger on a blizzard warning. WRF is showing near 18 inch accumulation by 12z Fri for metro Denver, while GFS holds that back a bit to around 1 foot accumulation. Palmer Divide looks to get pounded with 2 feet. Not surprised to see in the BOU AFD this morning that they held back snow totals due to melting. I was at Red Rocks on Sunday in shorts and t shirt enjoying near 80 degree temps. No matter how you cut it though, the afternoon drive home is gonna stink.

Edit: SPC has issued MD 271 indicating heavy snow exceeding 1 inch per hour will be underway in the 16z-19z timeframe for northeast CO.

 

[Adam Atkins]

Thought I'd chime in here...this has the potential to break all sorts of March snowfall records in the NW OK/Panhandle and SW KS regions. 24-hour March record snowfall for Beaver county (since 1950) is around 14" and I wouldn't be surprised if storm totals tomorrow neared that mark.

Funny how quickly we can lose focus of "winter" weather as soon as a severe weather episode occurs! I'd get a hotel room in Woodward if I was still in OK...looks like an epic event!

EDIT: Dodge City GFS 84 hr snowfall estimate is upwards of 18", wow! Here's the CONUS map by Saturday morning...JEEEZ!

http://204.2.104.196/gfs/CONUS_GFS0P5_SFC_ACCUM-SNOW_60HR.gif

 

[Andrew Francis]

Well the trigger was almost pulled last night on the OKC Metro. They left the WSW on the boardering counties to the immedeate west. Looks like they are still uncertain we will get anything, people always raise hell when we are scheduled for snow and get nothing.

Looks like they are playing the safecard on this one and leaving us out.


I am really excited to see how this storm comes out of the rockies and just spreads ridiculous amounts of snow all over the panhandles and kansas, this will be fun to witness!



I am about the same with the NWS on putting the heavy snowfall line just to the northwest of the OKC metro and an even cutoff up to the northeast into kansas. Looks like 1/3 of oklahoma will see snow (and of course its the northwest)


-Southwest kansas looks like the place to be IMO - I want to play in 30 inches of snow

 

[Chris Hayes]

Amazing to see NWS Amarillo predicting 10-20 FOOT drifts across the Oklahoma and Texas Panhandles. I'd love to see a storm like that. Amazing that it's occuring so late in the winter.

 

[Karen Burdick]

Well, here in Arvada we have 12 inches of snow already, and winds gusting up to 50 miles per hour. It started snowing lightly about 5:30 this morning. That changed at 7:30 when the snow started coming down at 1-2 inches per hour. Fortunately, however, the wind did not pick up until about 11:30. We are getting a momentary reprieve, but I doubt it will last long. The school finally decided about 9:00 to cancel parent teacher conferences, and to say the least I am very thankful.

 

[Dann Cianca]

I'm still at the office here next to Centennial Airport. The snow didn't even start sticking until about 11:30. We've had about 4-6" since and the wind has picked up considerably. Looking at the roadway outside, I'll take my chances in the snow versus the ridiculous traffic backups. Thank goodness for four-wheel drive!

 

[Mark Blue]

We drove down from the mountains this morning and I-70 in west Denver was totally crazy. Cars and semi trucks were in the ditch from spin outs and what not, then gridlock tookover from the lookey lou's checking out the wrecks. We are at home right now in southeast Aurora and the snow is coming down really hard with a stiff northeasterly wind blowing it to near white out conditions. The snow started coming down in earnest about 2 1/2 hours ago, and already we have a 3 foot drift on the south side of our house. I would guess the snow to be 6" - 7" deep on the flat spots in our lawn and this storm is just getting started. I'll bet when it's all said and done we'll have 12" - 15" of snow to shovel sometime tomorrow when it winds down.

My wife is getting ready to cook a big pot of chili. Stay safe everyone and please do not drive unless you absolutely have to!!

 

[Jeff Lawson]

I have somewhere in the neighborhood of 10-15" here at home in Littleton. Hard to tell, really, with all the drifting. Some spots have a couple of inches at best, and other spots are buried under 2' (if not more). In the undisturbed spots, however, amounts are clustered around 1'.

The snow started a little later on this side of town compared to locations farther north. Things got pretty crazy after the front moved through around 11:00 AM, and stayed that way through about 2:00 PM. Snowfall rates were easily 2-3" per hour at times, and the wind was blowing to the extent that you often couldn't see more than 200 feet.

I left the office to head home during the worst of it... apparently, everyone else had the same idea. It was practically rush hour. In the end, it took about 45 minutes to drive the 3 snowpacked miles home. My Subaru performed admirably, though.

Right now, the snow is starting to let up, but it's still quite windy. It looks like the worst is over, at least. Time to look ahead to the potential Monday storm (and beyond, even).

 

[Tim Vasquez]

This is one of the most potent systems I've seen in some time and I think we'll see some excitement in central Oklahoma. This is a highly baroclinic, concentrated system and the WRF has the SFC + UPR low passing just south of here. Patternwise I feel there's great potential for heavy sleet or snow bands coming the OKC area later Friday night and much of Saturday morning.

Tim

 

[Patrick Martin]

Had 3 inches when I left my house at 8:30 this morning. My office closed at 1pm, and it took me just a tick over 2 hours to get back to my home north of Denver, although it would have been a lot longer had I not forked out the $10 to take E-470 the full length. Based on my undercarriage dragging when I came into my neighborhood, would say we've got about a foot. It was not snowing when I got home, but it's starting back up.

 

[Chris Nuttall]

Amazing to see NWS Amarillo predicting 10-20 FOOT drifts across the Oklahoma and Texas Panhandles. I'd love to see a storm like that. Amazing that it's occuring so late in the winter.

Actually, some of the biggest snow events every to occur in the Panhandles happen in late March. January and February are two of the driest months. By late March, Gulf moisture starts to finally return to the area. Combine this with late season Arctic intrusions, and you get big snows. In fact, one of the Panhandles' biggest snow events occurred on March 25. I was talking about it with our Climate focal point yesterday.

11" is now the prediction for storm-total snowfall for AMA with amounts approaching 14"-16" in the OK and N TX Panhandle. Looks like I'll finally get to try out the 4WD on my Jeep.

 

[Michael O'Keeffe]

Kansas City may get in on the action or at least the southern parts of town. Both the GFS and NAM agree on blasting the area south of I70. The GFS is more aggressive with the heaviest band over KC with totals 8"+ possible, however the NAM is showing the heaviest band over Linn and Miami counties in KS extending into Missouri towards Harrisonville and Butler, MO with 14-16" possible, with 8-10" possible over southern Johnson county (my neck of the woods). Either way with the potential 2-3"/per hour snowfall rates, thundersnow, and 25-35 MPH winds it should be a pretty intense winter storm, during a winter season that was pretty boring. We could potentially exceed the amount of snow we had ALL winter!! I will be documenting this from Eastern Kansas since I need to stay close, but I'd love to be in SW KS and the OK Pan. 10-20 foot snow drifts would be something else!!!