lookingnorth

Looks like some places broke their daily records by over 10°C!

It looks like the hot Northwest/cool Southern Plains setup will continue for the next couple weeks.

It looks warmer than average and uneventful for the near future.

What was the CPC showing for February?

It's bizarre seeing it run 15-25 degrees warmer than the GFS from 96-168 hours out. It would be a pretty wimpy cold snap if the Euro verified, not even the coldest we've seen this winter.

I have no idea why the dry adiabatic lapse rate is so great in the chart. I've only ever used Skew-T log-P charts, not emagrams. However, the moist adiabatic lapse rate varies significantly based on temperature, and 5.9K/km is well within the range of possibility. The average environmental lapse rate is not the same as the average moist lapse rate because sometimes the atmosphere will be dry adiabatic, sometimes there will be an inversion, etc. But since the atmosphere is often moist adiabatic, the two happen to be similar.

I'm not an expert either, but I did a class project on it last spring and that's basically what I found. The change in lapse rates thing is new to me, but it makes total sense.

I'd say a rough value would be a few hPa (few hundred Pa) per hour. Here's a good resource to download ASOS data from a variety of sites around the world. https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/request/download.phtml I suppose this might be a little late for your project, but you may find it helpful for future reference.

September 13.

Greensboro just had their latest high in the 50s ever. Raleigh tied their second latest high of 62 or lower.

Here's where you can find the April NC average temperature departure. For some reason the mapping feature isn't working, but the table is still there. https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/statewide/mapping/110/tavg/202004/1/value

If the preexisting air is originally from some place cold, like the Arctic, the chinook winds will be replacing that colder air. The Rockies often serve as a barrier, pushing cold northern air down to their east.

Well, hail is heavier than rain and encounters less air resistance, so it falls faster. That may be part of the reason why.

It looks like it's just supposed to be a cold rain for Norman, unfortunately.

We got a little under 3" here in Norman. It seems like we were in a bit of a snow hole, with more precipitation in every direction around us. Nevertheless, it was the biggest snowfall I've ever seen here.

Update: there's now a sleet/freezing rain mix in Norman.

It's just 30F and cloudy here, with no snow or sleet yet. But I did see a bit of drizzle this evening.

There seems to have been a bit of a NW trend recently. I hope Norman doesn't wind up being too far south.

The NAM looks pretty good for all of central OK, even areas S of I-44, IMO. Of course, that could all change in the next 36 hours.

In OKC we're having what would be average for Dallas, with a grand total of 9.6" of snow and four days of snow cover since March of 2015. Wait that's actually below normal even for Dallas. Lol. Tulsa's doing even worse than us, and they even average slightly more snow. Springfield is also having snow amounts that are more in line with normal for Little Rock, and Wichita is having what would be considered below-normal years in OKC.

Raleigh's up to a 29% chance of blanking this winter just given climo on no measurable snow thru the 25th. Meanwhile, OKC luckily avoided blanking on winter with a whopping 0.1" of snow on the morning of the 22nd when I was asleep.

I wonder if OKC will get their fourth sub-3" snowfall winter in five years. So far, that seems pretty likely.

I just wanna pop in from Oklahoma and say that we've been doing poorly in the snow department as well. Oklahoma City averages 8" of snow a winter and has only gotten 9.5" total since March 2015. That's more like what you'd expect from a place like Dallas. And the past two winters had below-normal temperatures, so we've just had a lot of dry, windy cold, which is annoying

The 5-day mean is still in third place for lowest extent, but it's near a lot of other years.

I saw about six snowflakes and some very light freezing drizzle in Norman this morning, but now it's just cloudy, cold, windy, and dry.