StormChazer

Latest in Tulsa... Stronger cold advection will occur Friday night into Saturday as the strong shortwave trough ejects into the southern Plains. The ECMWF and now the GFS indicate that a wrap-around band of precipitation will set up along a SW to NE deformation zone just to the north of the PV max track across northeast Oklahoma and northwest Arkansas. Quickly cooling thermal profiles would support a transition to sleet and snow by this time. The latest ECMWF shows several tenths of an inch of QPF in the band with thermal profiles cold enough for all snow during the day Saturday across our area, suggesting near warning criteria snow accums are possible. We are still several days out to focus too heavily on the details just yet, but chances are increasing that some impactful wintry weather is possible to start the weekend for some of us.

*sweats in Tulsan* Euro

Canadian picking up on the deformation band in a big way.

Tulsa is sticking with the Euro right now. By Saturday, the latest ECMWF solution tracks the ejecting upper low across SE OK and NW AR, with a NE to SW oriented wrap-around band of precip along the deformation zone extending from the Ozarks down across eastern OK to the northwest of the surface low track. Thermal profiles will cool enough by this time to favor a transition to snow in this band, so it is not out of the question that some impactful wintry weather could occur over our region by next weekend.

Hmmmm, tricky forecast for next weekend. Closed ULL on the Euro, which historically can drop some really high snowfall rates. GFS partially there as well.

I've kept my mouth shut for a while, but GFS and Euro have both been picking up on something for mid Jan.

I saw that! Definitely keeping my eye on it! 06Z picks up on that energy as well.

Kansas City folks felt the same way we did after going a few seasons on a bad streak and last year they had 29.1 in of snow when they only average 18.8., and despite the warm Christmas, are currently above average on snowfall up to now. All I’m saying is it’ll get better.

I don’t think I really buy into that theory. Also let me start by saying this is motivated ZERO by politics. If you look at the numbers, 2005-2010 was the 2nd snowiest stretch for Tulsa since accurate/reliable record keeping in the 1950’s. 2010-2015 was the 6th snowiest on record. And 2000-2005 was the 5th. I’d find it hard to believe we could go from those kinds of record breaking numbers to snow drought in just a matter of a few years if it were climate change related. I know amidst our frustration it’s easy to want to find a reason as to why this all is happening because having a solid reason makes us feel a little better and a little more in control. But the truth of the matter is, we’ve just been REALLY REALLY unlucky, the pattern hasn’t been super favorable and when it has, we’ve just BARELY been on the warm side of things. Most of Missouri the last few seasons has been getting above average snowfall. It’s just luck of the draw sometimes. Well go through more heavy snowfall periods in the future and look back at this stretch as being an anomaly. It’ll get better. It just stinks right now.

It's 10 days out, but we do have some long range consensus out of the GFS and Euro for the 28th-30th time frame.

I decided to go digging into the Tulsa NWS records for snowfall totals to see just how unprecedented our snow drought is. I took 5 year intervals of each season's(July of year X-June of year Y-which for us is really just Nov-March) total snowfall. Here are my findings. 1950/1951 - 1954/1955- 48.3 in 1955/1956 - 1959/1960- 64 in 1960/1961 - 1964/1965- 32.4 in 1965/1966 - 1969/1970- 60.6 in 1970/1971 - 1974/1975- 37.6 in 1975/1976 - 1979/1980- 48.2 in 1980/1981 - 1984/1985- 34 in 1985/1986 - 1989/1990- 57.6 in 1990/1991 - 1994/1995- 41.7 in 1995/1996 - 1999/2000- 37.2 in 2000/2001 - 2004/2005- 55.1 in 2005/2006 - 2009/2010- 61 in 2010/2011 - 2014/2015- 52.4 in 2015/2016 - 2019/2020- 8.8 in Before this most recent 5 year stretch we were averaging 48.47 inches of snow every 5 seasons. We are currently sitting at just 8.8 inches of total snow these past 5 seasons and would have to get 39.67 inches over the next 3 months to hit average. Our next closest 5 year low is back in the 1960's at 32.4 inches. Tulsa's average snowfall is 9.69 inches per season. Assuming we hit that, we will still blow the 1960-1965 seasons' low record stretch out of the water by a 13.91 inch deficit. Truly a Historic snow drought.

Must be nice! haha...ha...*sobs*.

Question for the vets out there. Is there a place that shows every model run of say the GFS or Euro that has ever come out? Or back 10-20 years, etc? Like, if I was wanting to find a particular prolific winter storm from my past and was curious what the models showed leading up to it at the time, is there anywhere I can access that?

I would legitimately pay a large sum of money to be having what STL is having today.

Smh! I give up and suddenly boom, ice lol. ive got family in St.Louis and am beyond jealous. Wrecks starting to pile up here in Tulsa.

I think it's time for me to retreat into my hermit-like state until the next system catches my attention. Then I'll go back to obsessing.

I should specify that the in between runs only go out 90 hours and up to hour 90, the snowfall was actually going more south before the run ends, it’s only with the control run that you can look further that shows the snow, but it’s the control, not the OP. Members do show some runs going more north but virtually the same amount of heavier snows in our area.

I can confirm the 18Z euro went slightly north, but I would take that worth a grain of salt and wait for the 00Z Euro.

If you're in the camp of "throw out the 06Z and 18Z runs" because they use old upper air data but new surface data, then those two runs provide the more northern solution, whereas the 12Z with the most complete data shows a more southern track. If the 00Z GFS tonight goes south again like the 12Z did, then I'll be inclined to believe the more consistent Euro knows what is going on.

I'll post all the members with my analysis once they're done resolving.

Here you are everyone. Euro totals for 12Z run. Not near as heavy(but Euro tends to reduce as events get closer), and a hair south.

Hour 129 Diff.

This run is looking more south but weaker, colder air pushing further south as well.

Hour 111 difference.

Noticing some changes in hour 102 in the euro, waiting to see what happens.