OK / AR / KS / MO Winter 2013-2014

[MoWeatherguy]

12z NAM puts extreme NE OK up thru Joplin in its crosshairs for later today.  GFS a bit more conservative as usual.

 

 

NAM:

 

 

[MoWeatherguy]

12z GFS:

 

 

[Wx 24/7]

Thinking this is an I-44 special... don't see a whole lot coming south of the interstate as of right now. Maybe I will be surprised. Joplin to Mt. Vernon to Lebanon should be the bullseye in MO.

[MoWeatherguy]

I think we're close enough here to be good for at least an inch or so.

[JoMo]

12z Euro moved a bit farther north, but basically remains unchanged on amounts.

 

Is anything even falling from that band of snow though?

[NJ_Ken]

_{There appears to be some relatively heavy bursts of snow (emphasis on relatively) in the band just north of the OK/KS border, but I am not seeing any reports of actual snow hitting the ground so maybe the dry air is winning this battle.} 

 

_{EDIT:  As of 1:30 CST, the radar is starting to look surprisingly robust, but I still have not seen a report of snow reaching the ground... correction, it looks like Sedalia and Arkansas City have reported light snow in the past hour but nobody else seems to be.  Anybody seeing any flakes up that way?}

[JoMo]

12z Euro run still has the Friday system starting off as frozen.That may need to be watched in MO especially as temps may be close to freezing for a longer period. 

 

12z Euro medium range (Day 7-10) features high pressure nudging into the west coast, creating Chinook winds off the mountains (downsloping winds warm the air) from southern Canada on south. This warms the airmass east of the mountains. However, a system with cold air drops south over us and keeps us cooler/colder than normal. At the end of the run (hr 240) temps are around normal along... I-44ish... Southeast of there, temps are below normal, and northwest of there temps are above normal. The higher pressures are weakening at the end of the run, and higher heights are reasserting themselves west to southwest of Alaska. Temps across central and western Canada just north of the US border become very cold once again by the end of the run with anomalies showing temps -30 below normal. (and Canada in December usually isn't a warm place anyway) Gotta wait on the ensembles to see if they are still showing that cold air flooding SE again.......

[NJ_Ken]

12z Euro run still has the Friday system starting off as frozen.That may need to be watched in MO especially as temps may be close to freezing for a longer period. 

 

12z Euro medium range (Day 7-10) features high pressure nudging into the west coast, creating Chinook winds off the mountains (downsloping winds warm the air) from southern Canada on south. This warms the airmass east of the mountains. However, a system with cold air drops south over us and keeps us cooler/colder than normal. At the end of the run (hr 240) temps are around normal along... I-44ish... Southeast of there, temps are below normal, and northwest of there temps are above normal. The higher pressures are weakening at the end of the run, and higher heights are reasserting themselves west to southwest of Alaska. Temps across central and western Canada just north of the US border become very cold once again by the end of the run with anomalies showing temps -30 below normal. (and Canada in December usually isn't a warm place anyway) Gotta wait on the ensembles to see if they are still showing that cold air flooding SE again.......

 

I know a couple of people have mentioned the winter of 1983/84 as a possible analog for this winter.  I was still a pup in New Jersey back then, but at least at a glance, it seems like this year has evolved quite close to the same.  It sounds like December 83 started out with the cold air mostly draining south into the southern plains and Mississippi Valley with the northern plains and midwest being frigid cold.  Initially the east coast was fairly warm in December 83, but the month continued and into January, more and more of that cold air also started expanding east, too.  I know that Christmas 1983 was the coldest of my life in New Jersey (high of 10 F and low of 1 F WITHOUT snowcover!) and January 1984 was the coldest month in my memory (I think we had a stretch of 3 days in January with lows below 0 F and I don't think they've had three more such nights in the entire 30 or so years since then).  Does anyone happen to know how the southern plains did as far as snow and cold in December 83/January 84?  Did it stay relatively cold and snowy or did the wintry weather just translate more to the east as December and January progressed?  Personally, I am inclined to think that the Euro is on the right track with the pattern briefly relaxing and then the cold air just reloading and heading this way for another relatively extended period at least once or twice more.  If that is how December 83 played out, too, well, that only makes me more confident it will happen.     

[Wx 24/7]

Spitting snow here... very tiny flakes.

[JoMo]

I know a couple of people have mentioned the winter of 1983/84 as a possible analog for this winter.  I was still a pup in New Jersey back then, but at least at a glance, it seems like this year has evolved quite close to the same.  It sounds like December 83 started out with the cold air mostly draining south into the southern plains and Mississippi Valley with the northern plains and midwest being frigid cold.  Initially the east coast was fairly warm in December 83, but the month continued and into January, more and more of that cold air also started expanding east, too.  I know that Christmas 1983 was the coldest of my life in New Jersey (high of 10 F and low of 1 F WITHOUT snowcover!) and January 1984 was the coldest month in my memory (I think we had a stretch of 3 days in January with lows below 0 F and I don't think they've had three more such nights in the entire 30 or so years since then).  Does anyone happen to know how the southern plains did as far as snow and cold in December 83/January 84?  Did it stay relatively cold and snowy or did the wintry weather just translate more to the east as December and January progressed?  Personally, I am inclined to think that the Euro is on the right track with the pattern briefly relaxing and then the cold air just reloading and heading this way for another relatively extended period at least once or twice more.  If that is how December 83 played out, too, well, that only makes me more confident it will happen.     

 

You can check out the "Climate Division" maps on this site to make a map for a specific month(s):

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/cgi-bin/data/getpage.pl

 

Using 1950-2007 average anomaly....Dec 1983 was very cold. Precip was around normal.

Jan 1984 was basically cooler than normal, and around normal to drier than normal. 

 

If you want to see a specific history for a specific location, I like to use the wunderground almanac. Looking at Joplin...  Dec 1983 was extremely cold and snowy in Joplin. Doesn't look like we had any major systems though. Looks like we warmed up in early January 1984 and had more snow and cold in the middle of the month before we warmed up again towards the end of the month.

[MoWeatherguy]

83/84 was an awesome year for snow for SGF at least, and probably for most surrounding stations.

Dec - 17.2"

Jan - 6.90"

Feb - 9.60"

[MoWeatherguy]

Here is where I get some of my local climate data, mostly for MO and KS locations, though.

 

http://www.hprcc.unl.edu/data/historical/index.php?state=mo&action=select_state&submit=Select+State

[JoMo]

Spitting snow here... very tiny flakes.

 

Ditto.

[JoMo]

And we've picked up to accumulating flizzard snow now.

[westhope84]

^{And we've picked up to accumulating flizzard snow now.}

 

^{Congrats. I hope we can manage 1/2" here in Tulsa. Putting up the tree tonight, so It would be really nice to have a fresh layer down.}

[MoWeatherguy]

Picking up a little in intensity here now.  Looks to be a pretty sharp cutoff from around Anderson NE towards Springfield with this disturbance.

[JoMo]

12z Euro Ensembles for the longer range (D11-15) still show the Arctic air dropping down the central plains around Dec 20th-21st. They have temps below normal through the end of the run which is Christmas Eve morning (only a few degrees). The control run doesn't believe the Arctic air makes it very far south, and is very warm. The ensemble still has the ridge SW of Alaska but it weakens and realigns itself towards the end of the run and has more influence into the US and the west 1/2 of the nation may want to warm up. We'll see what happens.

[wildweatherman179]

I know a couple of people have mentioned the winter of 1983/84 as a possible analog for this winter. I was still a pup in New Jersey back then, but at least at a glance, it seems like this year has evolved quite close to the same. It sounds like December 83 started out with the cold air mostly draining south into the southern plains and Mississippi Valley with the northern plains and midwest being frigid cold. Initially the east coast was fairly warm in December 83, but the month continued and into January, more and more of that cold air also started expanding east, too. I know that Christmas 1983 was the coldest of my life in New Jersey (high of 10 F and low of 1 F WITHOUT snowcover!) and January 1984 was the coldest month in my memory (I think we had a stretch of 3 days in January with lows below 0 F and I don't think they've had three more such nights in the entire 30 or so years since then). Does anyone happen to know how the southern plains did as far as snow and cold in December 83/January 84? Did it stay relatively cold and snowy or did the wintry weather just translate more to the east as December and January progressed? Personally, I am inclined to think that the Euro is on the right track with the pattern briefly relaxing and then the cold air just reloading and heading this way for another relatively extended period at least once or twice more. If that is how December 83 played out, too, well, that only makes me more confident it will happen.

I am pretty sure that 1983-84 was one of the coldest winters in Oklahoma State history. Second only to 1978-79. It featured the longest subfreezing stretch since statehood of 14 days never reaching the freezing mark. I know that was for Tulsa. Not sure how the rest of the region fared but I will try to post a link to the article I read on it. It was a crazy winter here and one that has showed up in many analogs since this early fall. If the pattern verifies, itlooks to be a very memorable/infamous year. Lol

[wildweatherman179]

My apologies, it was the #8 coldest winter average temperatures ever. Still looking for snowfall amounts.

[NJ_Ken]

My apologies, it was the #8 coldest winter average temperatures ever. Still looking for snowfall amounts.

 

#8 is still plenty cold and that confirms what I thought.  I think 83/84 is going to be a very good analog for the entire nation once this winter season is said and done.  On the east coast, the real cold stuff was concentrated in the first half of that winter, but there was enough cold in the second half for some late season snow, too.  It sounds like something quite similar happened in the southern plains that winter, and I could definitely see that happening again this winter.  Snow is a bit harder to predict, but, give us plenty of cold air and I like our chances to get our share of frozen precip in the months ahead. 

[wildweatherman179]

#8 is still plenty cold and that confirms what I thought. I think 83/84 is going to be a very good analog for the entire nation once this winter season is said and done. On the east coast, the real cold stuff was concentrated in the first half of that winter, but there was enough cold in the second half for some late season snow, too. It sounds like something quite similar happened in the southern plains that winter, and I could definitely see that happening again this winter. Snow is a bit harder to predict, but, give us plenty of cold air and I like our chances to get our share of frozen precip in the months ahead.

Yeah. What's crazy is we haven't even saw a deep wrapping low yet. If it happens watch out because it will be awesome.

[JoMo]

 

 

AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION

NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE SPRINGFIELD MO

546 PM CST Mon Dec 9 2013

.UPDATE...

Issued at 534 PM CST MON DEC 9 2013

Snow has overspread areas along and north of the Interstate 44

corridor with locations around the Springfield metropolitan area

already pushing an inch. The snow will persist through most of

this evening before quickly ending from west to east from late

this evening into the early overnight period. With temperatures in

the upper teens and lower twenties, liquid to snow ratios will be

pushing 20 to 1.

We have increased snow amounts along and immediately north of the

Interstate 44 corridor as the latest short term model guidance has

bumped up QPF amounts in this area. This corresponds well with

current radar returns in the 25 to 30 dBZ range. We are going with

2-3 inch amounts in this area...but we wouldn`t be surprised to

see a 4 inch amount. We have actually trimmed amounts a bit across

south-central Missouri near the Arkansas border.

All forecast, outlook, and advisory products have been updated.

[JoMo]

My guesstimate would suggest we have 1.5" or so here so far. I used the scientific method of jabbing my finger in the snow. 

[Wx 24/7]

Pretty accurate because I just saw a report of 1.7" 5 miles NE of you. I measured at 6. We had around 0.8" of snow. This is going to overperform.

[MoWeatherguy]

I dont think monett will see much more based on radar. JoMo looks to b in a pretty good spot though.

[Wx 24/7]

I dont think monett will see much more based on radar. JoMo looks to b in a pretty good spot though.

Bands across OK should swing through with a bit more.

[wildweatherman179]

Hoping they'll swing south.

[JoMo]

Springfield bumped totals up to 3-6"

 

[Wx 24/7]

That new map from SGF matches perfectly with radar trends.

[JoMo]

I dunno, we may have to give the NAM this round?