As has been well advertised for the past 6 or 7 days, a potentially crippling storm is STILL headed this way for much of the central plains. I say STILL because there have been a bunch of folks (primarily down in OKC) that have already (yesterday) poo pooed this storm, well before the expected arrival of the main storm. There were numerous accidents in Wichita and KC yesterday evening from the first bit of energy that came out. I'm already hearing grumblings this Saturday morning. For parts of the high plains it's developing with icing across the panhandles.
This morning the satellite image clearly showed where the storm was.
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The upper part of the system had dropped all the way south off the coast of northern Baja California. This is serving to tap into tropical moisture (as seen by the green arrow coming up and moving towards the central plains). This system will NOT lack for surface/mid level/boundary layer moisture. The big question remains the intensity and duration of freezing rain. The dashed red line is the projected path of the storm. Loads of moisture will be lifted over the cold air that is in place. Speaking of which, the pattern is NOT a cold one. We got most of all the recent cold (past 3 days) from a huge snowpack that is in place across the northern plains and southern Canada.I don't recall computer forecast models (not just one) being so consistent in the projected outcome of this storm. As the upper storm (the red L) gets into the upper balloon network, things may change a bit. Currently it looks like the bullseye has shifted slightly south. But the amount of moisture that falls across a large chunk of the area will be significant. Here is one forecast provided by the Weather Prediction Center (WPC) through the upcoming week:
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So, the impacts. There will definitely be a battle ground between freezing rain and what will eventually be plain ol' rain. All areas will start out with freezing rain (liquid turning to instant ice as it hits the surface/trees/power lines, etc). But as the system lifts out towards Oklahoma and Kansas, I think it draws "warm" air north and flips the freezing to above. But where this ends up is a impossible to say, but most likely from OKC to near KC (and maybe as far west as Wichita). Just a degree difference will make or break. There is simply NO way to be accurate with that prediction. That National Weather Service will stay on top of that so monitor weather.gov and their Facebook and Twitter pages. The potential exists for 1 inch accumulation or more of clear ice. Most likely area for this appears to be from like Guymon through Dodge City and to Great Bend and Larned. But other areas will have extensive ice too. Significant snow should be limited to areas of east central and northeast Colorado but as storm departs other areas will get just a little snow too, maybe.
Regardless of the amount of ice that accumulates, this will be a very wet system bringing huge amounts of moisture. Beyond this storm, there is potentially another system that could impact the high plains by the end of the week or next weekend. If you go back to the satellite image, that potential storm is not showing up but is associated with the system denoted with the red L on the far left hand side. What produced that storm will produce more. I need some time to analyze that. Unfortunately, I'll be pretty busy next week doing three presentations and then will be at the Winter Expo in Dodge City from Friday though Sunday. I think now through the end of the month will be critical for determining what to expect for the remainder of the winter and going into the growing season. I'll address that after we get through this period.
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