Winter Storm NOW 12/14-15: KS, OK, MO

[Mike Umscheid]

Very nice snow at this time in Dodge City. Have measured 1.2" in the first hour and a half since it started snowing around 1730 UTC. Solid 26 to 32 dBZ echoes keep developing over Ford County with sustained 1-2"/hr rates. I'm liking this!

 

[Joel Wright]

Interesting little narrow bands of heavy snow in southwest Kansas right now. Focusing from DDC and to the southeast towards the Greensburg area. Almost look convective in nature.

 

[Mike Umscheid]

up to 2.4" here on the northside of Dodge. Still snowing heavy at times. Interesting very narrow frontogenetic bands of enhanced 30+ dBZ echoes. On WV imagery, DDC area seems to be in the enhanced deep moist plume from this initial mid level perturbation (which was formerly the upper low over southern CA yesterday). Baroclinic leaf looks to be developing out west on vapor imagery as well. The mid level PV max itself is still way out over western New Mexico.

 

[Andrew Francis]

Going to be reporting from Edmond tonight.

Strong wording

APPROACHING UPPER STORM SYSTEM WILL LIKELY PRODUCE A BAND OF HEAVY SNOWFALL. SNOW IS EXPECTED TO BEGIN LATE THIS EVENING IN WESTERN NORTH TEXAS AND SOUTHWEST OKLAHOMA. LATER TONIGHT SNOW WILL BEGIN TO FALL IN CENTRAL OKLAHOMA. ALTHOUGH SNOWFALL WILL BE WIDESPREAD...A MORE NARROW BAND OF HEAVIER SNOWFALL WILL LIKELY RANGE FROM SOME PART OF SOUTHWEST OKLAHOMA INTO CENTRAL OKLAHOMA. AMOUNTS OF 5 TO 6 INCHES WILL BE LIKELY IN THIS BAND.


5-6 inches seems about double what was originally forecasted. I hope this verifies I want this snow so bad!

 

[Andrew Francis]

New update, the Heavy snow warning cancelled for most of OK... lol

This is so strange, within 12 hours its gone 'no big deal' to 'big deal' and now back to no biggie again...

im jealous of you guys in KS lol

 

[Jason Bolt]

Have measured 8" in several places around town and out in the county in the last 30 minutes. Still snowing pretty good. Winds and blowing snow have vis. down to 1/4 mile. Roads are pretty bad. Several wrecks.

 

[Mike Umscheid]

Hi Jason! I came up with an average of 8.9" around my yard here on the northside of Dodge... this has just been an excellent snow for portions of southwest and central KS... the last of the moderate snow is just now moving through Dodge City. The wind out of the northeast is beginning to pick up a bit, starting to blow the snow around just a little.

 

[Marcus Opitz]

Currently heavy snow warning here in springfield, mo. Right now we have moderate to heavy rain/sleet. The sleet is starting to accumulate on the wood steps, ect... The last check of the temp was around 33 deg F (per wunderground). I figured the temps would be lower at this time..

 

[Brandon Lawson]

I'm sitting here in Joplin, MO and it's just rainy drizzle everywhere. I didn't go to sleep last night at my apartment in Norman, OK and finally decided to drive back home at about four in the morning. Fog was pretty dense, but nothing more significant to report along I-44.

The first wave of precip. didn't give us anything. But the RUC and the NAM are showing a better chance for snow accumulations late this afternoon in southwest missouri, with a decent amount of precip. coinciding with the freezing line dipping further south towards the Arkansas/ Missouri border. The second wave can be seen slowly moving across central oklahoma.

I remain hopeful that we'll get somewhere around 4 inches of snow, maybe a little more if we're lucky.

 

[Jay McCoy]

Only a few inches in Amarillo at best but with winds of 35-40+ it is hard to measure. Lots of drifting and plain and simple its too damn cold to stand out there and measure much. Roads ared snowpacked but passable. I think the majority missd us and hit more north towards Mike in DDC. I am sure the areas between like Liberal took a good hit. In amarillo at least this isnt a wet heavy snow. More of a powder that can easily be blown about. Didnt even have to clean off the truck. Just drove down the street and it all blew off.

 

[Andrew Francis]

Well, this storm sucked. Edmond, got about a dusting to an inch maybe. Dissapointed in this storm. Temps just stayedabove freezing too long.


Congrats KS

 

[Lance Maxwell]

I still have to shake my head at what OUN did yesterday. Issuing a heavy snow warning even with a lack of model support to back it up seemed a stretch at best. I know that forecasting snowfall in this part of the country can be exceptionally difficult, but to not even have received more than a flurry here in Norman makes me wonder. Unfortunately, all the hype leading up to this "event" resulted in the cancellation of all December convocations at OU. So I am just slightly aggravated to not even see a trace of snow on the ground when no more than 12 hours ago OUN was predicting 4-6 inches.

Sorry for the rant but at least we know there's no snow in Norman for the now report

 

[Jeff Snyder]

Well, this storm sucked. Edmond, got about a dusting to an inch maybe. Dissapointed in this storm. Temps just stayedabove freezing too long.


Congrats KS

No doubt... I'm here in far NW Arcadia (technically in Logan Co), and there's barely enough accumulation to call a dusting. The snow crystals are relatively small and grainy, but I suppose you could still call them 'dendrites'. OK Mesonet continues to show that ground temperatures are above freezing (2" bare soil readings of 34-36F to the NW of I44 in most of central OK), though air temps are below freezing. So, I'd still expect to see snow sticking on trees, etc. Given that the back edge of the "moderate" snow is nearing, I'm relatively confident in saying that we'll see nothing more than a 0.5" accumulation here, though I think we'll probably end up with a dusting or a tad more than a dusting. The latest forecast from OUN (9:45am) still says that we'll see 1-2" here, but I just cannot believe that given what I've seen the past couple of hours.

Model consistency was very poor with this sytem for a while, so I understand some of the flip flopping that took place. There were a couple of models runs that shows a secondary band of snow setting up near I44 (with a max QPF bullseyes somewhere near OKC, with another, higher one in southern KS), but the majority of them showed the heaviest snowfall occurring N and NW of OKC. This was also one of the few times when there was a relatively large discrepancy between NWS forecasts and local TV media forecasts (which seemed to keep OKC at 1-2" snows for the past couple of days).

Though I would have liked to have seen more snow, I'm sure OG&E and all the other crews who are in from out-of-state to help restore power are happy.

FWIW, Earl Barker has a page to pull up some archived model data (back to April of 2007) at http://beta.wxcaster.com/cgi-bin/NAMCONUSModelArchive.cgi . The run from 12z Dec 12 supports heavy snow in OK (see here. So, the 4-6+" snow forecast wasn't totally unsupported. Then again, I find the NAM as good as garbage compared compared to the GFS >50% of the time nowadays.