Tracking Rain And Snow Chances

Wednesday, January 21st 2015, 4:18 am

By: Alan Crone

Some patchy fog has formed overnight across part of eastern OK and several locations are included in dense fog advisories for the next few hours.   Temps are near or even slightly below freezing in these areas, and some minor icing could occur on elevated surfaces this morning.

A developing trough across southern California will combine with another system dropping southward across the inter-mountain region to produce our next weather maker for the southern plains.   The main wintry impacts will continue to be located across west-central, south-central and southern sections of the state into north Texas.   But there will also be an increasing chance for some light precipitation later tonight into pre-dawn Thursday near the Tulsa metro. IF this occurs, some light snow or sleet could be possible for a very small window early tomorrow morning with no travel impacts.   Locations southward, near or even south of the I-40 corridor, would have the better chance across eastern OK for some light wintry mix , while locations across west-central OK into the high plains of Texas, would have a much higher likelihood for some accumulating snowfall.

Temperatures this morning have started into the lower or mid 30s for many locations and should move into the lower or mid 50s today across eastern OK for daytime highs.   We may have a small period of partly sunny conditions, but increasing clouds will quickly arrive as the above-mentioned system(s) draw closer to the area.

Late today precipitation will break out, mainly in the form of light rain, across far northwestern OK and the panhandle regions.   This area will move eastward nearing part of eastern OK this evening. This should remain all rain across eastern sections of the state.   As the colder air aloft quickly moves closer to the state, the column of air will support snowfall across the Panhandle into the Texas high plains, and also into extreme west-central OK.   Significant snowfall totals ( 3 to 8 inches) will be likely in part of the panhandle, across eastern New Mexico, southward through the high plains, with some 2 to 3 inch totals likely across far west-central OK.

Pre-dawn Thursday, light precipitation may spread eastward across the central portion of the state, reaching close to or slightly south of the Tulsa metro. If this occurs, the air mass aloft to the surface could support some sleet or light snow flurries.   This scenario is depicted in a few of the previous computer model runs, but many of the runs also keep this precipitation south across the far southern sections of the state.   We think most of the precip will occur south of our main area of interest but will keep a healthy % chance for the Tulsa metro. Locations along and south of the I-40 corridor will have precip likely for the Thursday morning period.   After the early Thursday morning hours, the temp profile quickly warms and ends any possibility of wintry precip, even in far southern OK.   Later Thursday night into Friday morning as the upper level system swings across Texas, some rain may mix with snow across northeastern Texas and far southeastern OK resulting in some snow on grassy areas.   Again, this would be well south of our main areas of interest.

The next system caught in the northwest flow would move over the northeastern third of the state Sunday bringing gusty northwest winds and another minor cool down. But the temp trend in the data this morning suggest we may quickly erode the cooler air with 60s possible by Monday and Tuesday. Another system would arrive by late next week.

Thanks for reading the Wednesday Morning weather discussion and blog.

Have a super great day!

Alan Crone
KOTV