February 2021 - General Weather Discussion

[Anonymous.]

Nice taste of spring next few days, mild and windy. Weekend will be a cool down back into the 40s. Next decent shot at precipitation looks like somewhere in the middle of next week.

[Outhunder]

Starting to hear rumblings of arctic air coming south in the next few days, uh. Please tell me it isn't so!

[Anonymous.]

Yes. Still a long way out, but next week looks like the coldest week of the season so far. Here is a snapshot of Wednesday morning.

[FighttheGoodFight]

Thanks groundhog....

[SEMIweather]

Yep, GFS and ECMWF have both consistently shown a fairly prolonged arctic blast (for this part of the country, at least) next week.

[PoliSciGuy]

Yeah this gonna be a heck of a cold blast. Enjoy the next couple days while you can.

[SEMIweather]

Yeah this gonna be a heck of a cold blast. Enjoy the next couple days while you can.

Yep, feeling lucky at least that the initial cold snap that was supposed to happen this weekend isn't going to end up coming to fruition, could actually see us topping out around 60 on Sunday which would be a solid 20-30 degrees above what was initially forecasted. Don't think there's any way around 4-7 days in a row with lows in the single digits and teens and highs in the 20's and 30's once the arctic front moves through on Monday morning, though. Models are showing some of the most impressive signals for an arctic blast that I can remember in recent years. Will be interesting to see what (if anything) we can manage in terms of snow, not seeing much that would suggest a major system, but a couple of smaller systems seem possible.

[LakeEffect]

Thought this was interesting... (Insert warnings about looking too hard at one model run)

"GFS ensembles showing an impressive #snow signal in the Deep South right down to the Gulf of Mexico but especially for Oklahoma, the Carolinas & Virginia for next week. A #snowstorm in the Northeastern US is a nor'easter but in the Southeastern US is it a sou'easter?"

https://twitter.com/judah47/status/1...479051776?s=20

[Bill Robertson]

Thought this was interesting... (Insert warnings about looking too hard at one model run)

"GFS ensembles showing an impressive #snow signal in the Deep South right down to the Gulf of Mexico but especially for Oklahoma, the Carolinas & Virginia for next week. A #snowstorm in the Northeastern US is a nor'easter but in the Southeastern US is it a sou'easter?"

https://twitter.com/judah47/status/1...479051776?s=20

The last two GFS runs show metro area snow total through Feb 20 at 2 to 3 inches.

[Bunty]

Thought this was interesting... (Insert warnings about looking too hard at one model run)

"GFS ensembles showing an impressive #snow signal in the Deep South right down to the Gulf of Mexico but especially for Oklahoma, the Carolinas & Virginia for next week. A #snowstorm in the Northeastern US is a nor'easter but in the Southeastern US is it a sou'easter?"

https://twitter.com/judah47/status/1...479051776?s=20

The cold front is finally making good progress into Texas and Arkansas, but much of the rest of the south stays warm, since the front has been amazingly close to stationery this week. No wonder. The jet stream is blowing east rather than south or southeast over the upper south.

[FighttheGoodFight]

No thank you.

[SEMIweather]

Roads are essentially impassable this morning due to ice. Pileups on just about every bridge. Don’t go out unless you absolutely have to.

[Anonymous.]

Temperatures may not get above freezing all week. Tuesday will be our best chance in OKC to get above 32F. North winds will continue to pour in arctic air.

A messy weekend also looks like it is coming with snow chances and temperatures that will be the coldest in decades.

Some models are forecasting all-time record cold temperatures this weekend. If there is any type of snowpack and clear skies, I think it will be possible to see a run at the OKC record (-17F) which happened on February 12, 1899.

[BoulderSooner]

Temperatures may not get above freezing all week. Tuesday will be our best chance in OKC to get above 32F. North winds will continue to pour in arctic air.

A messy weekend also looks like it is coming with snow chances and temperatures that will be the coldest in decades.

Some models are forecasting all-time record cold temperatures this weekend. If there is any type of snowpack and clear skies, I think it will be possible to see a run at the OKC record (-17F) which happened on February 12, 1899.

how delightful

[HangryHippo]

Temperatures may not get above freezing all week. Tuesday will be our best chance in OKC to get above 32F. North winds will continue to pour in arctic air.

A messy weekend also looks like it is coming with snow chances and temperatures that will be the coldest in decades.

Some models are forecasting all-time record cold temperatures this weekend. If there is any type of snowpack and clear skies, I think it will be possible to see a run at the OKC record (-17F) which happened on February 12, 1899.

Awesome - I love the cold.

[SouthOfTheVillage]

This storm definitely ****s.

[SEMIweather]

The all-time record low maximum temperature in OKC is 2 degrees, and it at least seems conceivable that we could challenge that on Sunday. The all-time record for consecutive days below freezing is 13, I suspect we'll fall a bit short of that one as the current pattern looks to relax around the 19th or so.

[d-usa]

This seems like it was a weird cold snap. My kids wanted to do a freezing experiment yesterday (Sunday) and when I checked it was supposed to be a low or 34 with a high in the low 40s for Monday. Then we woke up to this.

[mugofbeer]

You all are getting it a lot worse than we are in Denver, plus wind. Sorry.

[SEMIweather]

Shallow cold air masses often travel faster and further south than what's modeled, which is what happened with this event. I'm not knowledgeable enough to explain why it occurs (in fact, if you scroll further up in this thread, you can see me getting fooled by the models into thinking we'd be in the 50's or 60's yesterday lol), but it's definitely a trend that I've picked up on over my years of following OKC weather, and you'll also see NWS Norman mention it from time to time in their forecast discussions. Some other recent examples of this happening are February 19th-20th, 2018 and February 4th-6th, 2019.

[mugofbeer]

Then, when they dive into the Gulf, they seem to spin up a bad SE/Noreaster.

[Anonymous.]

Okay so obviously 32F isn't happening today.

[BoulderSooner]

Okay so obviously 32F isn't happening today.

lol

[FighttheGoodFight]

Okay so obviously 32F isn't happening today.

Repeat this for the next two weeks

[Anonymous.]

HRRR showing light freezing rain and drizzle developing along and south of I-44 for Wednesday. Anything hitting the ground can assumed to be freezing on contact.