Interesting snow and wind event on target for much of Oklahoma for Saturday, March 20. In a cold season fraught with southern Great Plains snowstorms, yet another one is on track for the southern plains. I will blog this particular event since it will be close to Dodge City and has some possible blizzard implications at the height of the storm for some locations. The global spectral model solutions (GFS, UKMET, ECMWF, Canadian GEM) all show strong mid level (500-700mb) cyclogenesis occurring during the day Saturday as the storm tracks across southern Oklahoma. This would put much of Oklahoma in the sweet spot of this storm for heavy snow. A large 1034mb surface high across Wyoming combined with the deepening surface low from north Texas into southeast Oklahoma will support strong north winds with the snow… on the order of 25 to 35 mph during the storm’s height. There may be some frequent gusts above 40 mph for at least a few hours as well, especially across western Oklahoma on Saturday. I think this is the best location for blizzard conditions to develop with this storm. As such, I may be heading down there after I get off work tomorrow afternoon. The ECMWF shows the most aggressive deepening of the cyclone and stronger low level winds with some 50-60 knots at 850mb on Saturday! If > 8″ of snow combined with these kind of winds still appears like a decent probability within 3 or 4 hours of Dodge City during the daylight hours Saturday, I will likely make this chase — which would be the second blizzard chase of the season. Below is the GFS model valid 21z (4pm CDT) Saturday from Thursday’s 18z run:
