Oklahoma snowstorm / Texas ice

[Tim Vasquez]

Well, there it is... looks like we're in for a snow event in Oklahoma tomorrow around midday. It's a little less clear for north Texas since the WRF splits the upper energy between Oklahoma and central Texas.

One issue is the wave looks to be around here, which is actually a little further east (faster) than where I was expecting it to be:

And looking at the actual observed data, it is pretty poorly sampled:

So no doubt we're going to see some refinement or perhaps some changes in the forecast in the 00Z cycle.

One issue I did find a little puzzling was on the 21Z Sunday panel of the NAM (below). It shows what looks like a frontogenetic zone in north Texas, and is likely being reinforced by evaporational cooling of the Oklahoma precip into the new polar air mass, where dewpoints will be in the 00s-10s (probably low to mid 20s air temperatures all day in OKC tomorrow). This zone never develops, even with an upper wave traversing right at that time. In the event it did get going, we'll likely see a much bigger event in east Oklahoma, Arkansas, and the NE Red River counties, so it will be interesting to see if the new runs show any response in the wind & pressure fiends in that area or whether it keeps the status quo.