Major problems west of Liberal-Garden City-Dighton in SW KS. I got home around 11pm or so just as we were dropping to 32°F here in Dodge City. The rain is now beginning to freeze on exposed tree limbs, metal objects, and much of my Jeep. The temperature will continue to drop to around 29 or 30 by sunrise… and if it keeps raining for much of the night… we will have some major icing problems even here in Dodge City. I think the rain, however, will be more widely scattered than it was during the day Friday, so I doubt we will see serious ice accumulations. That could change though. Boy, out west though… wow. The snow line made it as far east as an Elkhart to Johnson to Scott City line by Friday evening. During the afternoon… a couple spotter reports indicated 6 to 8" of snow with some significant drifting about 5 miles or less from the Colorado border. East of there.. the reports were far less with little accumulation of snow… as the primary precip type was freezing rain or sleet. By evening…another huge burst of precipitation developed and moved northwestward into the cold air. As temperatures plummetted to 28°F in the Dighton and Scott City areas… the 2.5" or more worth of rain that fell previously had begun to froze…with heavy sleet and snow developing in those areas. As I type now… significant snow/sleet/freezing rain is falling west of Meade-Dodge City-Hays line. In northwestern Kansas… well what can I say… they are true winners for this storm with regards to snow and wind… that and southeastern Colorado. Numerous 12-15" reports with 6-8 foot drifts on 30-50 mph north winds. Wow!
and do not necessarily represent those of official National Weather Service forecast products,
therefore read and enjoy at your own risk and edification!"
December 30, 2006
December 29, 2006
High Plains Winter Storm Dec 29-30 [post 5]
Front finally moved through. It’s mid morning now on Friday and the front moved through here not too long after 9:00 am. Temperatures are falling fast here in Dodge City now on north winds 15-20 mph. The 32°F line is working its way southeast slowly…however, colder air continues to build in northeastern Colorado with lower 20s now in the northeastern Colorado high plains. Winds will pick up significantly through the day in far western KS, driving the 30°F isotherm deeper into Southwest Kansas… and it looks like a very messy night west of a line from Scott City to Garden City to Liberal. Below is the 10:00 am surface map:
Bright Band. As the heavy precipitation moved into northwestern Kansas this morning, a pronounced "bright-band" of 50-60 dBZ appeared east of Goodland. This is caused when snowflakes are falling through a layer of the atmosphere that is at or just barely above freezing…where large snowflakes are trying to melt, but not completely. Heavy sleet also usually appears as a "bright band" on radar.
Lightning strikes! The time is 11:30am, and we are getting an old-fashioned thunderstorm now in Dodge City with a temperature of 37°F. The snow and winter >> so close, yet so far away……….
High Plains Winter Storm Dec 29-30 [post 4]
More ice now?? The warm layer aloft has now reared its ugly head in the GFS and NAM models. Originally, it appeared that the 800-750mb warm layer would not be significant enough to cause problems with respect to mixed phase precipitation, but there’s no denying the big warm layer shown in the NAM and GFS model soundings for late Friday into Saturday. There could now be a significant ice storm for portions of Southwest Kansas immediately east of the heavy snow area. The "cold wedge" in the low levels is beginning to develop and overwhelm western Kansas. There are a bunch of surface obs around 33 to 35°F from Elkhart to Hugoton-Ulysses to Johnson in far southwest Kansas. It is 36F now in Garden City at 1am early Friday morning on a north-northeast wind. This shallow cold wedge usually throws a big wrench in things because models have a difficult time handling this common aspect of high plains weather. The 32F line is slowly working its way southeast…and will continue to overtake Southwest Kansas during the day Friday…with rain becoming freezing rain. In fact, the NAM and GFS show indications of freezing rain here in Dodge City as early as Friday evening….with still an abundant of precipitation yet to go through. It still appears as if widespread 2-3" storm total liquid equivalent precipitation will be realized over a good chunk of the region.
As far as the snow situation goes… it looks like the majority of the precipitation will be snow over far Southwest Kansas after midday today mainly west of Ulysses-Hugoton-Lakin. However, given the magnitude of the warm layer aloft, they even may not change over to all snow until early evening. By this evening, very strong winds north winds will develop with gusts in the 40-50mph range in this area where the snow will most likely fall. I think 8-12" will be common west of Ulysses-Hugoton-Lakin with blizzard conditions prevailing overnight tonight into Saturday.
It’s 48F here in Dodge City, but the slooooowly moving front is going to be pushing through over the next couple hours it appears. Below is the 1am CST 12/29 surface map over Southwest Kansas
December 28, 2006
High Plains Winter Storm Dec 29-30 [post 3]
A snowier scenario for Southwest Kansas! Well, all the models seem to be in a reasonable agreement now through 48 hours (Saturday morning 12/30) in taking the mid level vorticity max through West Texas to a position near Childress, TX. Surface response will be impressive with a compact surface low over Oklahoma somewhere. Where in Oklahoma the surface low tracks… will play a huge impact in where the rain/snow line sets up for the "main show" when this mid level low/vort max impinges on Southwest Kansas. Boy it is going to be close here in Dodge City… if the track is just a 30 miles more southeast…then the cold wedge can filter farther east… and Dodge City will see significant snow and wind on Saturday. Right now, it appears snow and wind (with perhaps blizzard conditions at times), could be a very big problem west of a Liberal-Garden City-Dighton, KS line. Below is a 6-panel of 500mb and Sea Level Pressure from the GFS, NAM, and Canadian models from this morning’s run:
High Plains Winter Storm Dec 29-30 [post 2]
Farther South? Well, the 00z/28 model runs I think are finally beginning to catch on to the magnitude of the digging jet down the backside of this trough along the Pacific coast. When I was at work earlier Wednesday evening, I interrogated the GFS, NAM, and UKMET models against the RAOBs along the coast… especially Medford, OR and Oakland, CA… and all the models in the 6-12 hour forecast grossly underforecast the middle tropospheric jet streak by as much as 35 knots. At 550mb, the Medford, OR sounding had around 120kts before the wind data was lost because of limiting angles (wind speeds too strong). The NAM and the GFS both had about 75 to 80 knots at 550mb at Medford. Well, the 00z initialization was closer on the GFS model, with 105kt analyzed. The result? A more digging system. The storm will continue to dig well into northern Old Mexico/Southern New Mexico before carving out a significant upper low over West Texas. See the comparison in the 12z/27 and 00z/28 GFS model runs valid for 6pm Friday:
Model QPF amounts are staggering on the 00z/28 runs! The GFS below:
GFS model 60-hour QPF through Noon Sunday 12/31. Interpolating for Dodge City suggests a little over 3"!
Even the Canadian model QPF amounts are very impressive… and this model is usually a little less aggressive with significant QPF amounts, based on experience:
12hr ending 6am Fri ~ 16mm
…ending 6pm Fri ~ 11mm
…ending 6am Sat ~ 18mm
…ending 6pm Sat ~ 24mm
…ending 6am Sun ~ 4mm
equals storm total ~ 73mm or 2.87"!! for Dodge City
It is looking more and more like a historic December precipitation event for much of Southwest Kansas with widespread 2-3" precipitation…including a major snowstorm for parts of far Southwest Kansas…mainly west of Garden City and Scott City. Future model runs should help iron out the median rain/snow line for this event… but as it stands now… it appears to be largely a major cold rain event here in Dodge City still.
December 27, 2006
High Plains Winter Storm Dec 29-30 [post 1]
Here’s the first blog post of this event. I’ll try to keep this blog fresh about twice a day (or more) until the event ends. Another major winter storm is approaching the central High Plains… and it looks eerily similar to the December 19-20th storm… the only difference for Southwest Kansas is the fact that there will not be a pre-existing source of remnant cold canadian air (for freezing rain). Below is the 60-hour total QPF from this morning’s 12z GFS run… pretty amazing:
Star = Dodge City, open circle = Denver, yellow dotted line = forecast mean position of rain-snow line through event
The problem for here in Dodge City is simple– it will just be too warm for all snow. The next problem is the fact that this system may evolve very similarly to last week’s storm… in that it will begin to slow down and occlude to the west southwest or southwest of Dodge City. For large-scale cyclones like this… it usually means one nice shot of precipitation in the warm sector (the warm conveyer air stream), then the dry intrusion really takes over and the event is essentially done with…until the wrap-around air stream comes through…but by that time, the storm will be severely occluded and the best forcing for lift and precipitation will be over with… so only light accumulation of snow would occur, if that.
Below is the GFS +48 and +72hr forecast from this morning’s 12z (6am) run:
blue arrow = warm conveyer air stream where significant precipitation occurs (where you want to be!)
yellow arrow = dry intrusion (where you don’t want to be!) …if you like precipitation
thin arrow points to Dodge City, KS in the 700mb panels
green dotted line in the 850mb panels denote approximate rain-snow line
The 700 and 850mb do not change much in 24 hours. The locations that remain in the vicinity of the blue arrow (in the moist conveyer) for 24 hours or more will see some major precipitation…and on the cold side of the dotted rain-snow line… well… you can put two and two together. It looks like another 18"+ event for someone on the Colorado Front Range and/or High Plains. More later…
December 20, 2006
SW KS Winter Storm Dec 19-20 [post 7]
Below is the regional radar mosaic as of 5:00 am CST. The snow/freezing rain line is advancing east across Southwest Kansas… we will probably see a brief period of snow here before the dry slot overtakes us on Dodge later this morning. Up in northeastern Colorado and northwestern KS… it’s all snow, and their event is just beginning where major snow accumulations will occur of a foot or more.
SW KS Winter Storm Dec 19-20 [post 6]
Well, it actually managed to stay right at 32°F the whole night while the moderate precipitation moved through Dodge City. Here is the result:
This is a zoomed in portion of the photo above:
I shot this photo outside my front door around 4:30am during a break in the rainfall. This is roughly 1/8" accumulation of ice. Had it been about 29° or so, it would have accumulated a lot more…. like what the far southwest portion of Southwest Kansas experienced, where there are power outages in several towns like Johnson and Hugoton
1215 AM ICE STORM HUGOTON 37.18N 101.35W 12/20/2006 STEVENS KS LAW ENFORCEMENT TREE LIMBS AND POWERLINES ARE SNAPPING DUE TO ICE ACCUMULATION. MOST OF THE CITY OF HUGOTON IS WITHOUT POWER. ROADS REMAIN WET.
0306 AM ICE STORM JOHNSON CITY 37.57N 101.75W 12/20/2006 STANTON KS LAW ENFORCEMENT TREE LIMBS AND POWERLINES DOWN. POWER IS OUT IN JOHNSON. PRECIPITATION CHANGED TO SNOW AT ABOUT 250 AM CST.
SHORT TERM FORECAST NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DODGE CITY KS 436 AM CST WED DEC 20 2006 CLARK-ELLIS-FINNEY-FORD-GRAY-HASKELL- HODGEMAN-LANE-MEADE-NESS-SCOTT-SEWARD-TREGO-
INCLUDING THE CITIES OF...ASHLAND... CIMARRON...DIGHTON... DODGE CITY...GARDEN CITY... HAYS...JETMORE...LIBERAL...MEADE... NESS CITY... SCOTT CITY...SUBLETTE...WAKEENEY 436 AM CST WED DEC 20 2006 NOW WIDESPREAD AREAS OF MODERATE FREEZING RAIN ARE OCCURRING ACROSS A GOOD PORTION OF SOUTHWEST KANSAS AS OF 430 AM CST. ALL AREAS ALONG AND WEST OF HIGHWAY 283 AND EAST OF HIGHWAY 25 ARE BEING AFFECTED. SIGNIFICANT ICE ACCUMULATIONS ON TREES, POWERLINES, AND OTHER ELEVATED SURFACES WILL CAUSE POWER OUTAGES AND PROPERTY DAMAGE DUE TO FALLING TREE LIMBS. ROADS FOR THE MOST PART REMAIN WET DUE TO WARMER GROUND TEMPERATURES, HOWEVER REPORTS FROM AREA LAW ENFORCEMENT STATE THAT THERE ARE SOME SLICK SPOTS, ESPECIALLY ON SECONDARY ROADS AS WELL AS BRIDGES AND OVERPASSES. DRIVERS ARE URGED TO EXERCISE CAUTION IF YOU ARE TRAVELING ACROSS SOUTHWEST KANSAS DURING THE EARLY MORNING. RAINFALL AMOUNTS OF UP TO AN INCH AS WELL AS ICE ACCUMULATIONS OF UP TO A HALF INCH ARE POSSIBLE BEFORE THE PRECIPITATION CHANGES OVER TO SNOW FROM WEST TO EAST LATER ON THIS MORNING.
December 19, 2006
SW KS Winter Storm Dec 19-20 [post 5]
Late evening update. Well, I got home from work with the temperature around 33°F here in Dodge City with light rain falling… I had my bowling league this evening (finally shot a freaking 600 series after three consecutive nights of 520s) and the temperature was falling slowly to around 30° with a bunch of rain moving in from the panhandles. On the short drive home from bowling, there was certainly an accumulation of ice on the tree branches and other exposed surfaces here in Dodge, but not terribly thick. The temperature has notched back up 1 degree to 31° at 10pm, and there is a very significant area of precipitation moving into Southwest Kansas. I think we will continue to slowly warm to 32F over the next couple of hours…then to above freezing sometime overnight, and we’ll melt the ice here in Dodge… the same cannot be said farther southwest though, where a very significant accumulation of ice continues…and will continue through much of the night in the Liberal, Elkhart, and Garden City areas it would appear. Here is a regional radar mosaic from around 10pm CST with a little annotation of where it is rain vs. freezing rain. The yellow star is Dodge City:
SW KS Winter Storm Dec 19-20 [post 4]
So close, yet so far away…
Well, here in Dodge City, after our morning light freezing rain shower, the temperature rose steadily throughout the morning and afternoon to the mid 30s…melting away all the ice. As it appears now, we will see mainly plain-old cold 33° to 35°F rain. For a winter weather weenie junkie… this is as bad as it gets!!! The upper storm is just too strong and too far to the west…encompassing too much low level warm air… the pre-existing remnant cold airmass that was in place yesterday was just not cold enough for here in Dodge City…. but….
Just west of here it is a mess. Widespread freezing rain with temperatures between 28° and 31°F in areas like Liberal, Hugoton, Elkhart, Dalhart, Boise City. The ice accumulation will be significant in these areas tonight as tremendous lifting of very rich low level moisture will really get going tonight.
Snow? Try the Cheyenne Ridge. Two feet expected and the Cheyenne office is going to issue a Blizzard Warning for the Cheyenne Ridge area… amazing. So in the span of about 2 and a half weeks… I will get shafted twice!! …once to the east (the Ozark Winter Storm of Nov 30th) and once to the north-northwest. One foot of snow accumulation will probably get as close as east-central Colorado…. I’ll keep ya posted… it’s quite a fascinating storm.