Oklahoma Weather Discussion - February/March 2013

[venture]

The winter weather advisory has shifted further south and east now.

Not any further south, still along I-40...just filled in some counties out east to the AR border.

[ZYX2]

Not any further south, still along I-40...just filled in some counties out east to the AR border.

Sorry, meant further south in comparison to Tulsa. But yes, you're correct.

[Easy180]

So the quick local media run down...

Gary / KWTV - A bunch of everything.

Rusty / KOCO - Mostly rain until Wednesday night

Mike / KFOR - 4"+ snow for OKC

At least they are as varied as the models are.

To be fair at least Mike said it would just stick to grass...Basically looking like a repeat of last week's storm here in the metro huh?

[ljbab728]

Mike is now predicting over 6" for OKC and close to a foot in the NW.

[ZYX2]

News 9 predicts 1-3" for OKC and 2-4" for Tulsa.

[OKCisOK4me]

Mike is now predicting over 6" for OKC and close to a foot in the NW.

6.8 to be exact, but he wasn't wearing the bling tie once again, so I'll believe it when I see it. I think it'll be like this last storm... where it may snow that much but it'll be so warm that it will compact due to melting and be gone by Friday.

[Anonymous.]

Models still trending towards colder, further south.

OKCisOK4me is right, this will be very much like last week where it snows a lot... But it melts and we have a window of no precip.


With the colder surface temperatures than last storm, there may be a significant icing event setting up for the second round of precip. in N to NE OK [as it looks now]. NE OK has been below freezing for several hours already and precip will stick a lot easier up there.


42F outside my place right now in OKC, temperature has stabilized here. Wet-bulb is sitting around 35F. Dewpoints are pretty low also. This will be very much like last week with timing and temperatures.

[boscorama]

Have the temp highs (forecast) gone down from above freezing? If not, this should be pretty benign in short order.

[venture]

Have the temp highs (forecast) gone down from above freezing? If not, this should be pretty benign in short order.

It'll come down to the rate of the precip falling. If we get heavy sleet mixed with snow, ground and surface temps will mean little - especially with heavy sleet. I'm not expecting anything major, but we'll see.

[Matt]

6.8 to be exact, but he wasn't wearing the bling tie once again, so I'll believe it when I see it.

He doesn't usually break out the bedazzled tie until the day of a weather event, no?

[jn1780]

nm

[venture]

Latest HRRR has rain mixing/changing to snow in Central OK around 9AM tomorrow morning.

Forecast total snow fall through 11AM...



This is an interesting one. This is 1 hour snowfall rates. Notice it puts 1-2"/hr rates over parts of Central OK. Rates this high could allow for ground accumulations to occur and overcome ground melting.

[OKCisOK4me]

The unwatched channel, Fox 25, says 4" on the north side of the metro, 1/2" on the south side but then their computer model shows 5.3" around Edmond, so who knows how this thing is gonna go.

He doesn't usually break out the bedazzled tie until the day of a weather event, no?

I think he does it more so for severe weather but even Gary said, there could be "thunder-something" tomorrow night.

[Anonymous.]

Moderate rain over the SW 2/3 of OK.

Evaporative cooling taking place now with temperature drops of about 5 degrees in the last couple hours.

Temps at 36-37 just SW of OKC metro. Rapid cooling taking place right now ~ 4am.

[Anonymous.]

At this rate OKC will be changing to snow/sleet by 5:30am.

I have had an 8 degree temp drop in about an hour and a half. 34F now.

Ice storm warnings issued out for N AR. This storm is impressive on multiple levels.

[Anonymous.]

~4:50 here in N OKC. Just checked outside because I cannot hear precip anymore. And it is now all snow.

Large wet flakes. 33-34F.

[Anonymous.]

Looking at the trends and intensity of the precip. shield moving in NW TX leads me to believe we could see snowfall rates exceed melting rates as we progress through the morning. This could actually start piling up.

I wonder if the NWS is going to upgrade advisories soon. They have added several counties in the extreme N and NE to WSWarnings.

[Plutonic Panda]

Big snowflakes falling in North Edmond

[Plutonic Panda]

Wow, if snow is already falling, then I suspect we might actually get a nice winter event. Is that right?

[Anonymous.]

Grass is already white in OKC. Gentle moderate snowfall.

Roads are still just wet as ground temperatures are in the lower 40s.


I am still suspecting snowfall rates to overpower melting rates as the heavier precip moves in. NW TX is blowing up with rain and it's being pushed north east over the cold air.

I can see the NWS upgrading OKC and even points southward to a WSWarning soon.

All of OKC is at freezing.

[kelroy55]

Large wet flakes and coming down pretty good at Penn Square area.

[venture]

Well looky there...GFS was the right one so far.

Beautiful moderate wet snow this morning, roads still wet so no worries there. HRRR showing precip staying mostly snow until it gets lighter/ends later today (until the front starts to march out). Accumulations are going to be inflated due to it not handling ground melt...so elevated grassy surfaces will see most of it.

So far this thing has busted most people's forecast that didn't take the winter precip forecasts into account.

[ZYX2]

It's begun to lightly snow in the Tulsa metro.

[venture]

Advisories were updates as expected...Winter Storm Warning is out now for the northern row of counties (with a couple just south of those included). Winter Wx Advisories continues down to I-40.

Norman temps are at freezing right now, so that needs to be taken into account on elevated surfaces. Seeing mostly slush on surface streets right now, but it is starting to stick to pavement and overcome melting.

It is interesting to note that NWS Norman's official forecast still calls for mostly rain right now with some snow mixing in. This was updated about 20 minutes ago. So not sure if their windows are snow covered right now or whats going on with them.

[BoulderSooner]

Roads are starting to become covered at Tinker AFB