Monday, January 08, 2007
Saturday's Ice Issues....
Our polar plunge is still on track to make it through the area by this weekend. Right now our computer models are tracking the shallow cold air to move into northeastern Oklahoma by Friday night. The shallow nature of the cold air is causing issues for our computer models to handle; however, we think that temperatures will fall close to freezing north of I-40 by Saturday evening, and that may cause freezing rain issues for Saturday night.
Air aloft around 5,000 ft will remain above freezing, so any rain that does fall may be subject to freezing temperatures at the surface. That's where the freezing rain issue comes into play. It's likely that Oklahoma City will be impacted the most by freezing rain on Friday and Saturday due to their proximity to the cold air. Travel west of our area may become dangerous!
This is a developing winter situation that we'll be watching closely. Most of the precipitation will move out by Sunday.
Air aloft around 5,000 ft will remain above freezing, so any rain that does fall may be subject to freezing temperatures at the surface. That's where the freezing rain issue comes into play. It's likely that Oklahoma City will be impacted the most by freezing rain on Friday and Saturday due to their proximity to the cold air. Travel west of our area may become dangerous!
This is a developing winter situation that we'll be watching closely. Most of the precipitation will move out by Sunday.
Posted by Drew Michaels at 3:22 PM
2 Comments:
Drew,
What do you make of the models' inability to handle the interpretation of cold air intrusions of the shallow sort? Have you seen the models proven wrong in cases such as these? Also, do you think they are interpreting the speed of the cold air properly? Great Falls and Cutbank have already seen the front pass through and have fallen into the teens in a matter of hours?
You bring up an important forecasting issue...to answer your question, I have seen the models underestimate both the speed and position of the cold air before, and that's why I'm siding more on the cold air moving across NE OK and NW AR for Saturday night. I think those areas will have the best chance to see rain that freezes, of course, that's assuming the computer models are too slow with speed and placement. The resolution of the models creates a problem for very shallow cold air, so my current forecast is based upon what I've seen in past events.
The most important point you bring up is "what's actually happening right now"! You have observed the front making good progress. The models are just a guide for us, but they have to match up with actual surface observations to be credible. We'll have to watch both the models and actual surface observations over the next couple of days to nail down the timing.
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