MO/KS/AR/OK 2025-2026 Winter Discussion

[StormChazer]

GFS uncooperative, but considered an outlier for the time being, especially given how it has handled this storm so far,.

[rockchalk83]

The GFS has been trash with this. It's inconsistent within itself and its ensembles.

[NWAflizzard]

Looks like the GFS kicks out the Baja low. 

[StormChazer]

GFS bows to King Euro again. Although it's not the totals we want to see for us, it's more important that the trend was to fall more in line with the Canadian and Euro and it's no longer out to sea. Now lets hope this massages northward.

 

Here is the 0Z Canadian as well.

 

 

[StormChazer]

The Euro Speaks.

Interesting setup this run though, the storm comes in 2 distinct waves of precip.

The 1st is roughly Fri night through Sat evening, then a break and a second wave overnight Saturday night into Sunday morning.

[ouamber]

Wow! The Euro has some crazy convective bands showing up! I wonder if someone in our area will get thundersnow! This looks like a pretty long event!

[stormdragonwx]

Yeah its definitely a setup we haven't really seen in quite some time with several potentially convective waves of winter precip. We will have to see if the pattern holds as we get closer. Still got 4 days. Trying to temper my expectations. lol and I don't want this morphing into a big ice storm. We are in peak climatology for those.

[MUWX]

Still seemingly a lot of possibilities on the table. The Euro and Canadian are pretty good hits for Southern Missouri, while the GFS is still pretty much nothing up this way. They all 3 have different possible outcomes on the table, still a lot to figure out with this one. 

[RocketWX]

Well I think this is my first post of the winter season but we finally have a storm to track. Here in SC KS, I'm keeping my expectations tempered for now. While the bitter cold air is for certain, the amount of precip we can squeeze out will be the question. With fresh polar air flowing in, I'm sure we'll be battling dry air for awhile. Won't take much QPF though, as snow:liquid ratios will be quite high here. The ECMWF, GDPS and finally ICON seem to be trending positively for us locally, with GFS still the outlier but signs of it slowly following suit. Hoping for a few inches of snow at least. As mentioned, still a good amount of possibilities with this one. 

[StormChazer]

At this point, I don't know what the GFS is doing anymore.

 

It has this storm producing 3 waves of precip, lasting all the way into Monday afternoon in Texas. No other models at this time are in agreeance with the GFS, so I'll continue to throw it out(also because I don't like what it's telling me haha).

 

It keeps the energy far to the SW and bottles it up, which is why we don't get the necessary lift here in OK/MO/AR/KS. We will continue to watch!

I'll post Canadian and Euro later.

[StormChazer]

Canadian. Slower with the energy coming out of the SW, keeps it bottled up like the GFS but finally gives and releases, unlike the GFS.

Overall, a lean toward the GFS but nowhere near as paltry with the moisture.

 

[JoMo]

It's still dependent on if there is any phasing or not. The 12z GFS misses the phase and eventually shears the upper low out. The 12z Canadian forces the upper low out which brings the precip farther north/west. 

[StormChazer]

Euro is starting to run, the 500 mb vorticity looks very favorable, waiting to get the actual simulated radar and totals. But good sign as of right now.

 

6PM Saturday. Notice the energy isn't bottled up like a bowling ball to the SW like it is on the GFS, that's your first sign this run should come in favorable for us.

vs the same time on the GFS.

[The Waterboy]

12 Euro ticked NW with the heavier snow.  Solid run.  

[StormChazer]

Still looking good with the Euro.

[MUWX]

Watches coming out now. I thought they might wait until tomorrow, but Oklahoma offices are pulling the trigger now and I assume the rest will follow. 

[RocketWX]

Here is the most recent run of NWS Blend of Models through Sunday evening. I haven't done a ton of research on it, but essentially it combines multiple numerical weather models and post processed data in hopes of giving an accurate and reliable starting point for NWS forecasts. I will say this most recent run is the most bullish with amounts across the board so far. Previous runs had ICT in the 3-5" range. This is probably due to a few factors. Models becoming more aligned as we go (confidence) and/or trends in the models. I'd still expect some fluctuations as we progress through the week, but I'd expect them to become smaller by the day. I'll be curious how this does as I don't have much history with it. 

[MUWX]

No mention it a watch coming from SGF in their afternoon AFD. Kind of surprising. 

[stormdragonwx]

29 minutes ago, MUWX said:

No mention it a watch coming from SGF in their afternoon AFD. Kind of surprising. 

To add to this, here's the SGF AFD Chat

Quote

Models still differ though this weekend with the second wave that will move through the region this weekend. An upper level low will dig south off the west coast through late this week then move to the east this weekend. The models differ on the track of this low, between the upper level low moving east remaining well south of the area, to the upper level low phasing with the northern trough and moving northeast through the area, with several solutions in between. The more southerly track will again keep the bulk of the snow south of the area with the northern track bringing snow further north across much of the area. A much colder air mass will be in place so this would be a dry snow. There remains a large spread in the models on snow amounts between the members, with the 10 percentile or low end amount currently indicating the accumulating snow remaining south of the area to the 90 percentile, higher end amounts showing the potential for several inches of snow. Still too early for specific snowfall amounts for the area with the uncertainties as the system is still off the west coast and not being sampled yet so changes are still likely to the forecast.

If its cold enough we may see 25:1 ratios.

[StormChazer]

18Z upper air not closing off like it was in earlier runs. This run should yeild higher snowfall amounts more northward like the Euro if everything thing else goes normal.

[StormChazer]

Trending in a very good way when you compare it to the 12Z run.

Now lets try and nudge this northward 50 miles.

 

[MoWeatherguy]

Looking better for sure. 

[NWAflizzard]

This is just a monster storm. Like two and a half to three day event. Somebody is really going to cash in if this thing comes a little more north. 

[MUWX]

Anyone got the ensembles they can post?

[The Waterboy]

GFS and GFSAI both trended upward in total QPF from 12z to 18z.  Here’s the change on the GFS for Tulsa, Bentonville, and Joplin.  

Joplin - .05 to .17

Bentonville - .08 to .35

Tulsa - .18 to .55

GFSAI were even higher than the Ops run.  

With high snow ratios that small amount of increase in QPF has a sizable change in snow amounts.  Definitely looks like the GFS caved towards the other models.  
 

18z ICON was a tad further SE than 12z.  We were in the sweet spot at 12z.  
And I personally thought the 18z NAM looked solid at 84.  

[stormdragonwx]

We should get a better idea on the strength and track by tomorrow night once the data gets sampled onshore. Could go either way.