General Weather Discussion - February 2014

[venture]

General model trend for Sunday-Monday is down on storm potential. There are some signs of March 5th being something to look at, but still very distant.

I think we are seeing the drought really manipulate our weather again. We have not had good moisture in almost 3 months.

Completely agree. GFS keep trying to give us something substantial, but as usually it is in the 7+ day out period and then as we get under 7 days it pulls it back significantly or positions it well east of the area.

[Soonerman12]

Since the month of Feb. is almost up, I just wanted to talk a little about this upcoming spring. I absolutely love the weather and have watched it since I was around 5 years old. Last spring we had an extremely active severe weather season (as all of you brothers and sisters down in OKC/Moore know ). Here in Tulsa we didn't have "as many" tornadoes in the area as you guys down there, but I still had many opportunities to chase. Please no one get me wrong, I do not want tornadoes to hit communities what so ever! I chase for the science and to help give local mets info to help keep people safe. As I've noticed lately (people that hate severe weather do not read), we likely look to be in for another very active severe weather season this year (Large hail, Tornadoes, flooding rains, ect.). If anything we were kind of "unprepared" last year as many forecasters didn't believe we would see "as much" tornadoes due to the persistent drought in Oklahoma. Looking at the weather we have had lately and this winter, we looked primed for April to be pretty active yet again. (Last few years we have had somewhere around 100+ tornadoes, with a high % coming in April). I wanted to bring this up to see what everyone's views on this subject are?

AGAIN I do not want to scare anyone, I just want people to keep this in mind since spring will be approaching quickly. My thoughts and prayers are all with you in Moore/OKC/El Reno area. God bless all of you. Stay safe -Taylor

[Damon Lewis]

Since the month of Feb. is almost up, I just wanted to talk a little about this upcoming spring. I absolutely love the weather and have watched it since I was around 5 years old. Last spring we had an extremely active severe weather season (as all of you brothers and sisters down in OKC/Moore know ). Here in Tulsa we didn't have "as many" tornadoes in the area as you guys down there, but I still had many opportunities to chase. Please no one get me wrong, I do not want tornadoes to hit communities what so ever! I chase for the science and to help give local mets info to help keep people safe. As I've noticed lately (people that hate severe weather do not read), we likely look to be in for another very active severe weather season this year (Large hail, Tornadoes, flooding rains, ect.). If anything we were kind of "unprepared" last year as many forecasters didn't believe we would see "as much" tornadoes due to the persistent drought in Oklahoma. Looking at the weather we have had lately and this winter, we looked primed for April to be pretty active yet again. (Last few years we have had somewhere around 100+ tornadoes, with a high % coming in April). I wanted to bring this up to see what everyone's views on this subject are?

AGAIN I do not want to scare anyone, I just want people to keep this in mind since spring will be approaching quickly. My thoughts and prayers are all with you in Moore/OKC/El Reno area. God bless all of you. Stay safe -Taylor

As a spotter/chaser for the media and a native Oklahoman I certainly don't want bad things to happen but I also understand from 42 years of living here that they will.

I think it is difficult to impossible to determine how active a specific spring will be. On the drought, there was a lot of discussion that due to the extreme drought in western OK that the dryline would establish its self further east last year which didn't really happen. Will it this year? Will the cold winter and odd weather pattern effect the spring season? I don't know. The last several years we've went from record ice, record snows, and record cold to record heat to mild summers and winters, active and mild springs, tornados behaving badly(El Reno, Moore), and extreme outbreaks in the ESE (Alabama, Georgia) back to a very cold winter with average to below average precip.

My thoughts are to be prepared every year as this is after all, Oklahoma!

[SoonerDave]

... Looking at the weather we have had lately and this winter, we looked primed for April to be pretty active yet again. (Last few years we have had somewhere around 100+ tornadoes, with a high % coming in April). I wanted to bring this up to see what everyone's views on this subject are?

AGAIN I do not want to scare anyone, I just want people to keep this in mind since spring will be approaching quickly. My thoughts and prayers are all with you in Moore/OKC/El Reno area. God bless all of you. Stay safe -Taylor

Having lived in Oklahoma 48.6 of my 49 years, one thing I've learned is that its very tricky to draw any inferences from the relative severity a given winter and the subsequent spring in terms of storms. A broad prediction of a storm season is almost as dangerous as the hurricane center predicting "X" storms in a tropical season - its a prediction set up to fail. We had several very quiet severe storm years between '99 and '13, and even before '99, but they inherently don't get the coverage or as noticed.

The thing to know going into any spring is to just be educated. Know that when April and May roll around, it's that time of year, and when it gets warm, windy, and humid and sticky outside, chances are a shot at storms isn't far behind; and if you live in the greater OKC area, you at least start paying attention when storms start percolating in the early afternoon around Wichita Falls, Lawton, and up to Chickasha along I-44. Get the radios and flashlights checked, then tucked away and (almost) forgotten until they're needed. And let the good folks here like Venture and Anon give us their gifted insights when the storms really do get close to home.

[Easy180]

Completely agree. GFS keep trying to give us something substantial, but as usually it is in the 7+ day out period and then as we get under 7 days it pulls it back significantly or positions it well east of the area.

Think the locals are struggling with their forecasts as KFOR has 70% for Sunday while KOCO is going with 20%. However I think both are saying light precipitation if we get hit.

[LakeEffect]

Think the locals are struggling with their forecasts as KFOR has 70% for Sunday while KOCO is going with 20%. However I think both are saying light precipitation if we get hit.

National Weather Service has 50%...

[s00nr1]

Nothing like -35 in Missouri in March.

[Anonymous.]

Some hinting of storm coming back to main body of OK now for Sunday.

[venture]

Online spotter training will take place Thursday if anyone wants to get in on it...

https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/501502225

Hosted by NWS Norman it will run from 1 to 330 PM.

[Anonymous.]

Sunday looking very interesting now.

Right now it looks like it's going to be a classic one like the early December storms we had this winter.

32F battle zone, freezing rain/sleet/snow precip type in question, dry slot W and SW of system, heavy snow band somewhere NW and N of system.


I will say right now it looks like main body of OK looks to be in ice mode, panhandle in snow mode.

[venture]

The 12Z runs don't look like anything spectacular for this weekend. Precip amounts look pretty like for the most part except going into very late Sunday where some accumulating snow is possible north of I-40. Both NAM and GFS keep the heaviest stuff well east.

[LocoAko]

The 12Z runs don't look like anything spectacular for this weekend. Precip amounts look pretty like for the most part except going into very late Sunday where some accumulating snow is possible north of I-40. Both NAM and GFS keep the heaviest stuff well east.

While still not a major event in the immediate metro, the past 4 runs of the GFS have definitely trended wetter:

18Z yesterday:



00Z today:



06Z today:



12Z today:

[SoonerDave]

Online spotter training will take place Thursday if anyone wants to get in on it...

https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/501502225

Hosted by NWS Norman it will run from 1 to 330 PM.

Venture, do they ever make any of the training materials or perhaps podcasts (gasp!) of these training sessions available outside the formal courses? I, for one, would love to get better educated on this aspect of storm observation, but attending one of these sessions during the day just generally isn't an option...

[venture]

Venture, do they ever make any of the training materials or perhaps podcasts (gasp!) of these training sessions available outside the formal courses? I, for one, would love to get better educated on this aspect of storm observation, but attending one of these sessions during the day just generally isn't an option...

I'm not sure. I want to say there have been in the past. They do rotate times on these courses. I sat through the advanced one last year and it was in the evening.

[woodyrr]

The materials used in the online and live spotter courses are available here:

Storm Spotter Resources

You can also follow #ounspot on twitter. Rick Smith, Warning Coordination Meteorologist at NWS Norman, and others have been tweeting takeaways from the sessions using this hashtag.

[woodyrr]

Two important links on the NWS resources page are broken. They are links to these publications: the Basic Spotter's Guide and Advanced Spotter's Guide.

http://skywarn.org/wp-content/uploads/basicspot.pdf

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/oax/skywarn/adv_spotters.pdf

[Soonerman12]

ANON and Venture... Is there any new info on the chances for winter weather. I've been following the maps and local mets but I want to know what you guys are thinking so far? What about for the Tulsa area. I know quite a bit about weather and that it will change 1,000 times before sunday, I just want to know you opinions. Thanks, Taylor.

[Anonymous.]

WSWatches going up in S MO and SE KS.

New GFS un-dryslots most of OK and gives us a round of what looks like ice/sleet. Then wrap around snow before heading off.

NAM shows the same storm but way off into eastern AR. NAM looks like it is out to lunch right now, but who knows - these things can evaporate in 2 runs.

[LocoAko]

Yep, 18Z GFS continues the moistening trend here in Central OK.

Edit: Although soundings show it ending as snow in central OK, with around an inch possible on top of the light glaze from the freezing rain.

[Anonymous.]

Dryslot is back over main body of OK.

Looks like extreme E OK for ice and extreme N OK for snow.

[okcboomer]

Interesting......... Emily and Payne both have a 100% chance of ice, sleet, and snow for Sunday.

[LocoAko]

Yeah, both the NAM and GFS are consistent on bringing in some mid-level dry air into central OK. Wouldn't surprise me to see freezing drizzle be the dominant reported precipitation type which is almost more hazardous since it is accretes effectively and can be nearly invisible.

On a related note, this has got to be one of the most impression inversions I've ever seen. 06Z NAM @ 63h -- that's a +51 C/km lapse rate with some elevated instability. Freezing thunderdrizzle at 14F anyone? :P

[Anonymous.]

GFS trying to hang onto sleet/snow wrap-around chances from SW OK through C OK. But we have seen how this is very hit and mostly miss this season.

Extreme E OK could be in for an ice storm.

[venture]

Dryslot is back over main body of OK.

Looks like extreme E OK for ice and extreme N OK for snow.

Yeah looks like GFS is snapping into agreement with NAM on this. We'll see if we have a last minute adjustment tomorrow.

[Dennis Heaton]

I'm not sure. I want to say there have been in the past. They do rotate times on these courses. I sat through the advanced one last year and it was in the evening.

YouTube would be great!