StormChazer

Hmmmm. Nam entertaining the idea of some snow after all up here. 1-2 inches with a very narrow band of 6 inches. If the low closes off, someone in NE OK/NW AR may get a surprise out of this. Not holding onto my breath though.

TSA Discussion DISCUSSION... Forecast focus remains squarely on the strong storm system set to move through Friday night and into Saturday, with strong thunderstorms, accumulating snow, significantly colder temperatures, and low wind chills all possible. Models continue to struggle with consistency in timing and the eventual path of the surface and upper level features, and as such, low confidence remains in the details surrounding this event. Presently, low stratus deck continues across most of the forecast area, with expansion of the cloud deck likely to lead to at least mostly cloudy skies most locations by daybreak. Expect cloudy skies to persist for much of the day as low level moisture expands ahead of a fast moving disturbance that will push through the region tonight. Have kept toward the lower end of guidance for temperatures today due to the expected cloud cover. Showers and/or drizzle will be possible overnight as the disturbance moves through. Clouds should diminish some behind the disturbance, resulting in highs expected to be a few degrees warmer than today. Cloud cover will increase again from the west during the day Friday as the stronger system approaches, with the initial rain still expected to hold off until the afternoon. Isolated thunderstorms ahead of the approaching cold front still look to be a good bet, especially across southeast Oklahoma, given forecast instability. Any strong thunderstorm potential should be limited to areas near the Red River, where CAPEs of 500-1000 J/kg are currently forecast. With the current models trending slower, the thunderstorm potential will linger into early Saturday morning. This slower trend will also delay the onset of any notable wintry precipitation until after daybreak Saturday. It continues to look like most areas will see rain with a transition to snow, although there still looks like there could be a narrow buffer time frame when freezing rain/sleet could be possible. Accumulations of either will be negligible with snow dominating in the wintry precipitation department. Besides the slower model trend, there is also a more southerly trend than the 15/00Z suite, more like the 15/12Z suite. If this trend holds, this could place the maximum amounts in eastern Oklahoma farther south than the Kansas border and perhaps similarly in northwest Arkansas. For now, will go with a broad brush 2 to 3 inch area north of I-40 given the difficulty in pinpointing where any snow band might set up. Precipitation remains likely to move out by early Sunday morning. With regards to the expected cold temperatures, the cold air intrusion does not look quite as strong this morning as it did 24 hours ago. Forecast temperatures from Saturday night into early next week will be a few degrees higher this cycle but not significantly so. The likelihood of single digit wind chills late Saturday night and early Sunday morning remains high. There will be a good warmup early next week immediately ahead of the next system set to move through Tuesday and into Wednesday. This system will have some winter weather potential as well, although details with this one are even more uncertain than the weekend system.

For those interested, here is the average(mean) of all 50 ensembles over the last 5 runs of the Euro. As you can see, there is definitely a trend to higher amounts in NE Oklahoma. In order from oldest to newest.

While I never got my hopes up for this system for Tulsa. Seeing that if the forecast was just 2 or so degrees cooler we could be looking at some amazing snow is frustrating. Feels like wasted opportunities.

Anyone wanting to see where the snow is via visible satellite today.

Happy for my OKC friends, disgusted for my fellow Tulsans.....that system had SO much potential. BUT, the season is still young! Just have to keep looking towards the future. The year with the most, highest snowfall totals is February. So we still have plenty of time!

Euro hits Tulsa with nearly 1/2 inch of freezing rain and then buries it in 7 inches of snow. OKC gets hammered too.

Thanks for sharing that. New Euro is coming in, and continues the trend since last night. It now encapsulates Tulsa in the snow zone.

Yeah, very unprepared, but after the bust in December, I think all the Mets were trying to play it extremely safe. I’m very concerned about tomorrow. HRRR and meny other models are kicking out a ton of sleet and freezing rain on Tulsa.

Wow really? Do you have any link or way to look into that pile up more?

One of the local Mets here in Tulsa seems pretty unconvinced that we could get in on anything but rain tomorrow. Models definitely seem to suggest otherwise though. Latest gfs dumps an unholy amount of freezing rain and sleet on Tulsa.

Yeah, it'll be interesting to see if the sleet in OKC makes it up to Tulsa, it's certainly cold enough for it.

HRRR is constantly spitting this thing out quicker than the NAM. Here's 8AM on the HRRR And here's 8AM on the NAM. The NAM is lagging behind by about 4 hours right now, which in this scenario, where a single degree makes a world of difference, that's pretty substantial.

I'm expecting TSA to upgrade Creek county, Okfuskee, Mcintosh and Hughes to a Winter storm warning, advisories into Tulsa, Wagoner and Muskogee. Just my guess.

Latest GFS brings the precip shield back into Tulsa solidly, but has it as rain. GFS doesn't perform as well with the cold air, so if it's off just a couple degrees, we could be looking at snow instead of a rain/sleet mix in Tulsa metro.

NWS in Norman adjusting totals.

Wow, what a close one this could turn out to be.

It should be noted that Tulsa NWS was predicting a high of 36 earlier for today, and it's now thinking 33 as a high.

Here's the 2 runs side by side. Definitely a NE shift in the snow area. That gradient in Tulsa county goes from a trace in North Tulsa, to 6 inches in the bottom corner.

Euro running right now. The northern trend is continuing......Tulsa, there may be hope yet.

So I'm no meteorologist, but weather has been my passion since I was in the 3rd grade(I'm 28 now), so disclaimer that what I say may not be 100% accurate. In regards to this storm, it's all about cold air. The cold air will be retreating today and tomorrow, so earlier models pushed this storm out quicker, resulting in there being plenty of cold air to work with(combined with the fact that this storm is a cold core storm). But the last couple days' runs slowed the storm down by about 24-32 hours, meaning it had less cold air to work with, so snowfall is ENTIRELY dependent on that cold core. So when the storm went slower, it went more south, keeping that cold core just out of reach for certain areas. If the storm sped up, while it would mean less snow to an extent, the snowfall rates in those deformation bands will still be very high, so it's relatively negligible in my opinion. Hope that helps!

HRRR coming in a little faster than the NAM, these are both at 10Z Thursday. Faster means more cold air sticking around which means more snow.

12ZGFS continuing a slight northern jog.

Definitely a northern jog in the models since last night. I'll probably throw up if OKC get blasted and Tulsa gets nothing; I think I'll take it personal at that point as the weather Gods hating Tulsa, haha. But seeing such a steep gradient in a matter of miles, means that if the storm just moves a tad faster and/or north, then Tulsa could get it on it too. So after abandoning all hope yesterday, I'm back to holding onto a sliver. There's a few members in the Euro that get Tulsa in on the action, and many that are so close that 20 miles makes an ENORMOUS difference.

A Winter Storm Watch just went up west of DFW.