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

[Mike Peregrine]

Well ... one thing I'm thinking about is the fact that we still have plenty of snow on the ground from last week's storm. None of it has melted. So even if the WF were able to get north enough for temps in KC to climb into the low 30s, I think the ground cover is going to slow the process quite a bit, and whatever falls from the sky is going to want to freeze. Just my totally unprofessional opinion -

 

[Jeff Piotrowski]

Ice Storm Update NE-OK

I lost power Sunday afternoon here in Owasso. I would say about 50% of all the trees are down or broke in Owasso. Ice is one thick on trees and power lines. The town of Collinsville has no power and heavy tree damage. I have my office for now inside my truck in the drive way with power inverter. The sky is now turning very dark SW of me at 10:51 am with heavy thunder rolling in now. If it stays below 32 here today were in big trouble.

The last word on power outages for Tulsa area 160K.

 

[Wesley Luginbyhl]

I was without power when I woke up this morning, nice and cold. I was woke up by a loud crash as a tree outside was falling on someones car. Pretty much every tree has been shreded in Norman to some extent. I drove around Norman a little this morning and there are multipe streets that have just been closed off completely. Front-end loaders are driving around pushing trees of the streets. I can believe I got power back, I expect to lose it again at some point unless we get above freezing soon.

 

[Angie Norris]

31/30 according to the mesonet here in Norman with another round of freezing rain coming through. Power's blinked a couple of times here, but it's only been a monentary thing...very lucky! Most of the trees look to have about an inch of ice coating them, but amazingly the roads only look wet (but I'm not about to check them out). Going to grab a couple pics of some icicles before they start melting, got a pot of chili on the stove, and study more for finals.

 

[Kenny Drake]

Travel is very difficult in Norman right now not due to the roads but downed trees and power lines everywhere. I planned out my route to the main part of campus avoiding roads with overhanging trees and I got here. Power outages appear to be widespread with the only area completely unaffected (electricity-wise) being OU with the underground electricity. My apartment is cozy warm and so is work. This will be an extensive cleanup and the landscape in Norman will never be the same as it was last Friday. I'd say quite a few of the trees have been completely destroyed with 1ft+ diameter downed "branches" quite common. I still expect temperatures to get above freezing here during the afternoon. Melting is already underway with barely subfreezing temps combined with just enough energy from the sun. Local Mesonet reporting 31F with the freezing line rapidly approaching from the SE. I do not expect any more significant ice accumulation on the southeast sides of the OKC metro however the damage has already been done. I think the entire OKC area will be above freezing (or at the freezing mark) by 5pm.

 

[Karen Politte]

Until I started surfing this morning, I had no idea whatsoever of the carnage in OK that this system has been causing. It's amazing what a state or two of separation will do for you if you don't watch TWC!

The front associated with this system has been crazy to watch. Zero snow or wintry precip. here, but we have been foggy and socked-in with drizzle for the past three days and counting. It's getting old. We have spent this whole time sitting up just north of the warm front. Yesterday afternoon the warm front was the sharpest I have ever seen. LZK was reporting 77oF. 20 miles north here in Cwy it was still in the 40s - and you know what, that front never did make it to us.

For all of the excitement, though, I'll gladly take drizzle over an ice storm. I'd LOVE to luck-out with a snowstorm, but I have grown very fond of the trees in our yard......it's scary to think that OUN won't looks the same for a long time when the tree cleanup is done.

KL

 

[Chris C Sanner]

I can concur with what Kenny is saying. Right now I would estimate (and this is no exaggeration) that at least 80% of the trees have lost some branches and there's a good percentage that are destroyed for good. A rather large tree on the outside of my apartment complex here on campus is completely down and there are a lot of streets that are not passable due to the trees being down across them. I should have some video within the hour of the damage in Norman. It's quite extensive to say the least...

Edit: Video is uploaded and should become available soon at:

http://www.vimeo.com/426822

 

[Andrew Francis]

Looks as if things are calming down in OK.

here in Stillwater, a dirty slushis present on the roads where tire ruts havent been made. It has slowly been melting off though. While typing this, the power is flickering a bit. Freezing drizzle is falling here in Stillwater.

Everyone is being rude ot me, because last week I was saying this could be an "epic ice storm"....

Now im eating my words.... *NOTE TO SELF - Dont tell ur uneducated-weather-idiot friends about hunches on forecasts...

*smacks self on forehead*

I hate stupid people

 

[Rhyuan Janssen]

Don't feel bad Andrew, remember a few weeks ago Quad Cities office said we could have an EPIC record breaking snowstorm and that did not happen either.

 

[Brandon Lawson]

I find it humorous that the school has sent out an email to people saying that Tuesday finals at OU will still be taking place. What I find humorous is that it appears that 8 out of every 10 homes have no power. So who is getting these emails? LOL! I live in Norman, on the south side of E. Lindsey St. between Classen and 12th St. and it appears that my block is one of the few blocks with any power.

I even sent an email to President Boren and Dr. Carr of the Meteorology department asking about this. I'll probably get in trouble, but it really is something to consider. I'm okay with proceeding with finals. I just thought it was funny.

 

[Maggie Kahman]

I just got back from walking around town for about an hour taking pictures. Everything is very pretty. We go a bit of freezing mist this morning. I will post a few pictures once my camera warms up, its in the bag still.

 

[Robert Rohloff]

I am currenty working one of the command posts set up for police services. We have over 400,000 without power in Oklahoma at this time. Some estimates of 10 days for all power to be brought back on line.

About 80-90% of all trees damaged with many wiped out. Area will not ever look the same.......​

 

[cstrunk]

The bad news for everyone who gets major ice accumulations, is that it is going to be over such a widespread area, that power utilities will not be able to get to everywhere to bring power back online for a very long time. 400,000 already in the dark in Oklahoma. I suspect that the number will approach one million+ storm-wide.

Here in Ames, they have added in a little bit of freezing rain accumulations for tonight, up to .1". When it switches over, we are looking to get 3-5" of sleet/snow. It will make travel hazardous, but will be nothing compared to what it will be like south of I-80. The forecast for my home in Shenandoah, IA is from .6-.8" freezing rain tonight, with .1-.3" freezing rain tomorrow before it switches to sleet/snow for an additional inch or two. An inch of ice? That will be nasty. I hope it clears up by the time I travel home by the end of the week. Deer hunting is going to be dangerous with all of the ice on the ground!!

 

[Mike Peregrine]

I don't know when they started this exactly, but I'm totally digging the web briefings (4:00 pm update here). It rocks to hear a forecaster and see some of their products/reasoning on an event like this. I'm totally glued to every update from EAX these days.

Oklahoma sounds like a war zone. I'm afraid that it's true ... this is such a widespread event over multiple days this time, there will be some real trouble restoring power. Usually with a bad ice storm, the surrounding states send teams into the hard hit areas to help the local power companies. This time, each surrounding state is getting its own emergency within a slightly different time frame. It is going to cause some major backups in getting power restored. Don't expect it anytime soon, that's all I can say ...

 

[Jeff Snyder]

Just to reiterate -- from my understanding, the "400,000" for outages in Oklahoma refers to the number of customers affected. Just to guess, consider that 75% of those are homes (apartments, etc; the remainder being businesses), and take an average of 3 people per household... That puts the total number of people w/o power in Oklahoma near 1 million. OGE SystemWatch shows 226,176 customers without power in their area (central OK), and PS-AEP (which covers Tulsa) shows 200,000 customers w/o power in their area. I sure there are plenty more rural co-op electric services that are down, so the statewide "customers affected" number may be nearing 500,000. FWIW, the local TV media in OKC are saying that this is either the largest power outage event in Oklahoma history, or this is the largest power outage event in OG&E history.

The sheer amount of precipitation that has fallen in some areas amazes me. For example, KOKC (Oklahoma City airport) recorded 0.86" yesterday, and 2.39" from 06z-18z today. That's 3.25" liquid-equivalent precipitation in 36 hours, with the vast majority of that fell when the surface temperature was below freezing. Interestingly, KOKC recorded 1.99" of liquid precipitation between 6-12z today. Now, if only the OK Mesonet sites had heated rain gauges...

Edit: climate summary for OKC gives daily precip of 1.18" today so far... So, that 1.99" between 6-12z must have been not passed the data quality check (not surprising, since I can't imagine 2" of rain fell in 6 hrs overnight, given the evolution of everything I watched on radar).