As the most inspirational snow Monday January 23 2023
You're listening to weather with enthusiasm
it's Monday evening and we have something which is totally amazing that's going on in the South Central States really the southern plains. Those of you that do not realize how amazing this is, that's because you're lacking some information in regards to the storm. The way to get a six and snow storm here in the Midwest and in the Southern Plains has always been you need three ingredients. You need an Arctic airmass or at least a cold strong high pressure system, deep low pressure and copious amounts of Gulf moisture. But here we are. And we're lacking one of those ingredients and forecasters are calling for six to 12 inches, at least 10 inches over the Northwest portions of Arkansas. This is totally amazing because over the past several January's over the past several January's when we had the arctic air locked off. It was locked up just the arctic air and the plain arctic air January of 2020. Jan, even 2021, even 2022 When those things were happening, the precipitation was falling as rain even in places as far north as Chicago. It used to be that it was given in the month of January on the backside of any storm system. You could always expect snow regardless of whether there's arctic air or not arctic air. The question is will you have a major winter storm but then in recent January's that criteria that was gone, it was totally taken away. And the precipitation would actually fall as rain storm systems with lots of moisture would fall as rain. Even in northern cities. It was quite amazing. Actually, I don't know which one's more amazing. But after experiencing that for so many January's here we go with. There's not even a cold airmass. Behind the storm. There is a cold game as well behind the storm but not feeding into the storm. The storm is producing its own cold air, it's bringing cold air down. It's called dynamic cooling. When the precipitation gets heavy enough, this is what dynamic cooling is we have two things going on. We have evaporative cooling, which sometimes the National Weather Service will call wet bulb cooling. And we also have dynamic cooling, and the two are coming together to produce a major snow storm in the deep south, southeast Oklahoma is getting more snow than the northeast Oklahoma. This is you know it's starting off as rain in the morning. The only thing that's going to change in the afternoon, there's not any cold air coming into Oklahoma not at all, yet temperatures are going to be dropping through the day, and the precipitation is going to change during the afternoon. The fact that the sun is going to in fact that it's daytime is irrelevant. What's happening is like this we have precipitation light or moderate in the morning. Because it's light or moderate. We are back into a situation where we're back to reality we don't have cold air temperatures will be in the low 40s. The precipitation will be falling as rain, the precipitation picks up and intensity in the afternoon. And as it does so it brings cold air aloft cold air from all the way up in the atmosphere comes down with the precipitation because it's so heavy, it knocks the temperatures down. And then on the surface, we have another problem that the surface temperatures yesterday were measured to be between 40 to 50 degrees within one inch down into the ground. So we're gonna have a very hard time having that snow accumulate. Another difficult thing is to keep the snow as slow. Even when you bring the cold air down. The surface temperatures are just warm enough to melt it. But we have something else taking place which is the evaporative cooling. And the evaporative cooling is when the air slightly dry perhaps on the surface as the precipitation evaporates initially, the temperatures are going to go down even on the surface. So we have cold air with no source. The only source is the storm system itself. And this is happening in southern states, a place that we ordinarily would never expect something like this to really be happening. And so fall accumulations are expected to be a solid especially in the Ozarks, the Ozarks that That forecasters are calling for six to 10 inches, probably some higher spots as well, you also have to realize Oklahoma just because it's Oklahoma, you could always pull off a clap of thunder. And should that happen, you're gonna have localized spots of several more inches of snow. So this is going to be a wet snow. It's something which it's a, it's a day though, maybe these forecasts are treading very dangerous waters for forecasters that want to keep their eye the reputation of accuracy. Because if anything should go wrong, the forecast turns into a bust, we do not to reiterate, just to reiterate, we do not have arctic air feeding into the system. Not only that, we do not have a cold airmass feeding into the system, either. There's not even a cold front, there's no frontal boundary fitting into the system. This is completely based upon dynamic cooling, and evaporative cooling, the two are going to come together to produce heavy snow, it's all about the precipitation rate, wherever it has nothing to do with whether you're North whether you're south, whether the sun is out whether the sun is not out, it has to do with how heavy the precipitation is, and your closer to the moisture content, the heavier the precipitation is going to be. And that's when the precipitation changes over to snow, we're going to have a mix, whenever the precipitation lightens up, it will immediately change over to rain because there's just not enough cold air. Another thing going with this storm is that there is no warm nose. In the storm. Sometimes there's like a dry slot in the middle of these snow storms, that causes the snow to change over to a drizzle or something like that in the middle. Now with this one, this is a straight A total precipitation, it will be precipitating the entire time. This is really, it's kind of like an inspirational event. In a certain way. It's also comforting, it's comforting to know that January is back to where it was in the way it should be. This is a little bit it's a little bit far south for something like this to be happening. This is something that you can't blame climate change. It's first of all, we have nothing extraordinary going on. We have a heavy snowstorm in the South. It's extraordinary to those people who understand the synoptic set up that is producing this. But one thing is that climate change, you can't blame this on climate change. Because the only time you could blame cold air on climate change is when it's a result of the stratosphere warming, which is what causes all the arctic air to come down south. The Arctic is locked up north. And yet the upper atmosphere is cold. It's cold enough to it's very cold down there. And we have dynamic cooling, you know if anything, this is it's comforting. It's almost like the people who are worried about climate change. This is a this is a time this is a type of snow storm. Or actually, this is it actually shows perhaps in that area. We're not seeing for the time being this storm is not being affected by climate change. The only thing however, maybe the whole strange, the whole strange synaptic setup the whole thing. It is a strange thing. I think it's very strange thing. It is happening in an area that's deep in the south Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and there's no cold airmass feeding into the system. And still happening in previous January's we had stuff like this happening way up north, even in Chicago and the precipitation would fall as rain. And we're also the forecasts right now are calling for more than six inches of snow. As the storm system moves east, eventually it is going to collide with with what's called the northern stream, which is going to collide with colder air that's when it becomes more of a normal system. And it becomes more for castable as it moves east into the Ohio area. And you get for that you know then you have to deal with is the is the air cold enough for it to snow altogether. This air that's feeding into the system. If you don't have the dynamic cooling of the precipitation is not going to be heavy enough. And we have to deal with is the air cold enough and the backside of the system to be producing snow right now in Oklahoma and Arkansas. The precipitation is going to be heavy. We're going to have dynamic cooling. That's the forecast. The fact that surface temperatures are currently 40 degrees or even higher. All of that is going to all of that will be going to be overrides can be overridden by all of that. The least in the Ozarks. I'm sure these forecasts are questionable you're gonna have it's you're going to have a wide range of snowfall accumulations with the system, all because there's so much which is dependent upon struts Small variables and you could the forecasts are calling one to six inches in some areas. Some areas just up to six inches, anywhere from nothing to six inches in some areas. The Ozarks you happen to have temperatures a little bit colder there. And in that area you it's a more solid forecast of probably around six to 10 inches, maybe even some isolated higher amounts. We have lots of children in this world and these areas do not get snow so often they don't get snow of this magnitude so often and this type of snow is certain to produce snow days in places down there and I'm sure they are very excited about this and we wish everyone good luck and have fun and have a wonderful night and a wonderful day for tomorrow
You have been listening to the podcast weather with enthusiasm.