WINTER STORM NOW 12/08-11/2007: KS, OK, NE, MO, IA, CO, among others

[Jonathan Whitehead]

Ok when I post on here nowadays its something to take note of it....and this (event) is certainly something to take note of. Once again Oklahoma being Oklahoma and only in Oklahoma. Ive known about the Winter Storm Watch but with dead week and all Ive been out of the loop about the goings on specifically. So I went to Bricktown with some fraternity friends to see Christmas and whathaveya. We practically froze the entire time, it was windy too and misty. Anyways driving back around 11:45 in S. OKC on 35, I was like, was that lightning? then it happened again, and knowing the OAT, I immediately thought, this cant be good. And so driving thru Moore we encountered a near toad strangler.

SPC and NWS OUN are right on top of it. SPC has Mesoscale Winter Wx MD. Lightning at this temp almost always means seriously elevated goings on. So obviously warm air aloft and looking at 0Z OUN sounding thats certainly the case. OUN mentions possible ice storm and major travel impacts. And oh btw I have a 1:30 aviation final Monday at Norman airport which I have to drive to. So bring it on!!!!!!!


btw you know your a wx nut when your standing outside your apt (under shelter) when its 34ish windy to watch a thunderstorm (and post on ST). Its cold as ever but im lovin it.

 

[Angie Norris]

Interesting drive home from work in SW OKC . Came out to scrape ice off my car windows with frequent lightning. Just north of Moore about 12:15 ran into some heavy rain and gusty wind. Didn't see any hail, dang it, and thank goodness no freezing rain at that time. Definitely a freaky, wicked cool event!!

 

[Chris Vagasky]

If you're in Norman, anything that was wet is now a thin glaze of ice.

 

[Rocky Rascovich]

Cntrl Okla. current weather

I too saw some lightning on the way home around 030cst.. was all IC stuff for the most part, Roads from the NW Expressway/Hwy 4 intersection on north to the house was starting to ice up. Current temps around 27F. We have parallel bands of moderate to locally heavy ZR stretching from south of OKC northeast thru TUL and the other band north of me thru PNC.. Just now as of 0208, possible cg within 5 miles of the farm and mod. ZR

I love winter... but not these debilitating ice storms that marr the landscape for years not to mention the power interuptions that can sometime last for weeks ( the Jan.'07 and Jan'02 icefalls are good examples) The trees are just getting back to looking normal after the '02 icestorms in Kingfisher... The price to live in weather paradise, eh?

 

[Andrew Francis]

Sitting here in Stillwater, Made the drive North from Edmond to Stillwater earlier tonight. Was very foggy and light mist/drizzle. Haven't seen any real heavy precip falling, but I just took a look - and the temp is 28 F. While typing this, I can hear some light precip battering against my window. I am going to go outside here in a minute and take a look @ slickness of the area.

The freezing line sure is trickling South tonight (along and past SE OKC and SE Tulsa). Wondering what this will mean for the major ice accumulations expected for late sunday night and monday into tuesday.

 

[Jeff Snyder]

I'm always fascinated to see moderate convection when surface temperatures are below freezing. A look at the Spencer, OK, mesonet meteogram (Spencer is just northeast of OKC), shows that it picked up 0.5" of rainfall in a 20 minutes time span near 1am. The temperature at the time was around 30F, and the temp has continue to fall to a current value of 28F. Not surprisingly, the anemometer appears to have been frozen, given that it's currently not reporting any winds. For ASOS/AWOS and mesonet sites, calm or missing winds are usually good ways to find where the precip has been falling as freezing rain (assuming ambient/environmental winds are >3 mph). A glance at surface obs on the OK mesonet show about half a dozen sites with missing winds (at a time when most wind obs in central and northern OK are 10-15 mph sustained).

FWIW, temperatures have also fallen into the teens in far northwestern OK, with 8-15 mph NNW winds likely continuing to bring in low-mid 20F temps closer to I40. These very shallow arctic fronts have a tendency to be underforecast by most models (both in intensity and speed), so this isn't too surprising.

07 UTC SPC/RUC mesoanalysis also continues to indicate >500 j/kg MUCAPE, supportive of a continued risk of thunderstorms and upright convection. The band of heaviest precip just N of I44 east of I35 in northeastern OK appears to be in an area of decent frontogenetical forcing (and the fun ageostrophic accelerations associated with such forcing). The 850mb cold front may be a good marker for the freezing rain - snow transition zone (or liquid - frozen transition zone).

The VWP from KTLX valid 0720 UTC suggests that the top of the cold layer is ~1800 ft AGL (I'm using the 2.5 degree base velocity data to pick that out easily; KINX / Tulsa / data suggests a similar depth). The cold air deepens to >3000 ft above the KVNX radar, pretty much in line with velocity data from KICT. Given this, I wouldn't be surprised to see some sleet mix in with the freezing rain closer to the OK/KS border west of I35. Well, maybe not, but perhaps close... Same mesoanalysis shows the 850mb front located near a line from Shamrock TX to Emporia KS to the NE MO / SE IA border area.

EDIT: It's important to note that, per OK Mesonet (see HERE), current 2-in and 4-in bare soil temperatures are in the mid 30s in most of northern OK. As such, the precip is not likely to freeze upon impact of roads. Elevated surfaces that tend to cool to ambient temperature more quickly (e.g. powerlines, trees, bridges) are likely icing up rather rapidly right now N of I44. I imagine that it may take until tomorrow night for most areas to see ground temperatures (at least 2" or 4" below bare soil) reach the freezing mark.

EDIT 2: OGE System watch (http://oge.com/systemwatch/SystemWatch.Systemwide_1_content.html ) is showing >1000 customers w/o power in eastern OKC. Of course, in the scope of things, this isn't a large number. However, I think this is only a hint of what's likely to occur in N of Tulsa through the morning. Latest TLX data shows convection and showers are redeveloping in the quasi-stationary zone along I44, from near Chickashaw to Norman to Stroud and Bristow. My house in Arcadia is currently between this band to the south and the intermittent activity nearer Perry and Guthrie. *shrug*

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

That area sw-ne just north of I44 from just north of Tulsa towards just se of Coffeyville is going to be screeewed up. I wish I was closer to that area or could make the drive to it easier. Radar already estimating areas of 1.5 inches in there and it's still in the middle of some very heavy precip.

Edit: Ouch, hadn't looked at SGF's radar for a while. Hmmm, must drive down there.

SGF's latest winter weather message:

[FONT=lucida sans typewriter, lucida console, courier]A MAJOR ICE STORM WAS DEVELOPING FROM SOUTHEAST KANSAS INTO CENTRAL
MISSOURI EARLY SUNDAY MORNING. MODERATE TO HEAVY FREEZING RAIN
ACCOMPANIED AT TIMES WITH LIGHTNING AND SLEET WILL FALL AT TIMES
FROM THE COLUMBUS AND PITTSBURG KANSAS AREAS NORTHEAST TO THE LAKE
OF THE OZARKS REGION WHERE POTENTIALLY DAMAGING ICE ACCUMULATIONS
WILL OCCUR. TOTAL ICE ACCUMULATIONS OF ONE HALF TO ONE INCH WILL OCCUR
WITH LOCALIZED AMOUNTS UP TO ONE AND A HALF INCHES IN THIS AREA.
[/FONT]

Yeah, I'd say that won't be hard to get at all.

 

[Jonathan Whitehead]

THIS IS SERIOUS

31* in Norman and a TOAD STRANGLER, Pouring RAIN,
...and.....just took a CG, under 1/2 a half mile, LOUD BANG!!!!!!
This lightning is vivid and deadly, also seeing reports of pea sized hail on this forum and elsewhere, not sleet or grupel, but hail (the 2 are often mistaken by the public)

strong to almost severe thunderstorms in 30-32deg is serious. Current obs here in Norman is 30deg

EDIT: rain has now switched to Freezing Rain, I can tell not only by the looks of it but by the sound, its hitting a lot harder then a mere splash. Prob mixed with sleet too.
Also looking out room window at cars in parking lot, windshields are all glazed.
DO NOT TRAVEL

did I mention im fresh out of food.

 

[Marcus Opitz]

gr level 3 showing smal hail and tops approaching 30k feet near SGF. As Jeff said earlier, most of the obs that are due north of SGF (Clinton, Mo, ect.) read zero wind....

 

[Darin Brunin]

OMFG not deadly lightning!

Freezing drizzle here. Did I meet the quota?

 

[Andrew Francis]

Just got out of the shower, opened my window to take a look out (its all condensated).... Immedeatly a gust of frigid wind came in and freezing rain started coming down fast. I can see it raining pretty decently now, my room overlooks a street light and I can see it nicely. Seems to be most of the convection is South and along the leading edge of the cold air.

Maybe the original line expected here in OK for the most accum. won't be frpom Lawton, to OKC, to Stillwater anymore. Hmmm...

 

[Andrew Pritchard]

I'll add that the "end of the world" pouring rain probably isn't such a bad rain. A heavy downpour is not going to accumulate on icy surfaces nearly as fast as a drizzle will. So really, pouring rains at this temperature would be the better or the two.

Most of central Illinois has finally been upgraded to an ice storm warning tonight. Looks like areas right around Interstate 72 looks to get the brunt of it overnight and early tomorrow morning. Temperatures have been deadlocked at 30F for almost the entire past 24 hours here. Freezing rain earlier today didn't do much damage as far as roads are concerned, but cars that remained idle for the day developed quite a glaze. We'll see what the overnight brings.

 

[Wesley Luginbyhl]

Driving back into Norman at 3am from a little drive up to Moore, I was not sure if any of the lightning was striking the ground till I saw a transformer get struck about a mile from me. A nice 2-second powerflash followed. A powerflash was the last thing I thought I would see when I went out this evening considering it was 30 degrees. I was also greeted back to Norman with a slush storm (rain and sleet), and so as of now Norman has the slickest streets in the metro that I saw.

 

[Danny Neal]

I am right on the fringe of Ice and Sleet/Snow. Looks like a mainly 1-2 inch sleet event for me. No precip all day over here but we will see as things progress!

 

[Sam Sagnella]

A several-hour long heavy freezing rain event is slowing down a tad here in Norman. As of now there're about 1/2-2/3" icicles covering the trees and powerlines in my yard near Boyd and Jenkins, and thus I have no desire to go test the roads (which are notoriously bad anyway). As Wesley mentioned, the thunder and lightning were very intense for a while; we've had spring storms less intense than some of the ones we had earlier this morning. As I write this actually I can hear a few rumbles in vicinity. The NWS has also recently upgraded the OKC metro area to an ice storm warning effective through 6pm, as this has definitely become a very significant event for us here, with training thunderstorms in subfreezing temps. TGISunday.