Summary of December 23 - 27 Storm

The Christmas Snow of 2009 will be remembered by many in the country.  While we didn’t get much of the snow, the event was still memorable for us in mid-Missouri.  Here’s a wrap-up of the events, starting the night of the 22nd.

-- December 22 --

As the warm air mass lie just to our south, rain began to spread over the area overnight on the 22nd and early morning the 23rd.

Daily Precip 12/22:  0.39"

-- December 23 --

Rain fell modrately throughout the day on the 23rd, falling heavy at times.  The next map shows the distribution of thunderstorms that rolled through the area during the evening hours.

Daily Precip 12/23:  1.70"

-- December 24 --

During the morning hours, we caught a bit of a break from the rain.  During the afternoon though, the rain picked up again.  The big story today was the severe storms down in Louisiana, and snow falling in Texas and Oklahoma.  Dallas recorded their top December 1-day snow, with a total of 3".  Oklahoma City recorded 16" in a record-breaking one-day total.

Daily Precip 12/24:  0.59"

Daily Snowfall 12/24:  0.1"

As the low treveled north of the area, cold air spilled in from the west and changed the rain over to light snow.  We were greeted to light snow falling and a bit of snow on the ground Christmas morning.

-- December 25 --

The wind picked up overnight as the front passed, although not as bad as the blizzard conditions in Nebraska and Kansas.  Our top wind gust at this station was SSW at 25 mph early in the morning.

Our high temperature of 51° occurred just after midnight, and nine hours later we reached our low temperature of 17°.  We stayed in the upper teens and low 20s all day.  It was cold and windy!

As you can see in the next few maps, the low meandered a while in Iowa and northern Missouri.  As it did, it provided a steady snowfall throughout Christmas day.  Although it didn't accumulate much, it was perfect for a beautiful, yet easy to travel day in mid-Missouri.

Daily Precip 12/25:  0.04"

Daily Snowfall 12/25:  0.5"

-- December 26 --

The 26th was much like Christmas day, except not quite as windy.  Flurries and light snow fell through much of the day, accumulating a bit.

Daily Precip 12/26:  0.05"

Daily Snowfall 12/26:  0.5"

-- December 27 --

In this final map, moderate snow was falling the morning of the 27th.  There was a persistent band of moderate snow that lined up on I-70, with snow ending in Fulton a little after sunrise.  St. Louis felt the snow for longer in the morning.  This was our final, yet heaviest snow of the system.

Daily Precip 12/27:  0.11"

Daily Snowfall 12/27:  1.3"

Storm Total Precipitation:  2.77"

Storm Total Snow:  2.4"

White Christmas

It's been seven years since we last woke up to a white Christmas.  The snow storm that brought record-breaking snowfall to Texas and Oklahoma has pushed northward, allowing the cold arctic air to spill in and give us the snow we were dreaming of.  At daybreak, we only had a trace on the ground, but presently at 11:00 a.m. we have nearly an inch.  It's nothing to shake a wovel at, but it's enough to cover the ground.  And with my family all here, on Christmas...it's beautiful.

This is a storm that will be remembered for many years.  Check out Chris' CoCoRaHS blog to see the massive amounts of watches/warnings that were posted.  Everything from blizzard to tornado, this storm has had it all.  So far, this storm has kicked out 15 reported tornadoes in Louisiana and Mississippi, and over a dozen people have been killed in the blizzard.  A reminder of the power and danger of these storms. 

A current radar image shows the size of the storm. 

Ami, I heard you had a nice Christmas gift last night.  Can't wait to see your data online!  :o)

I hope everyone has a blessed and peaceful Christmas.

Traveling This Week? Read This!

Visit this blog for the latest on the storm to impact the midwest later this week.  You'll find some analysis of the storm and possible events to take place, PLUS suggested arrival times for cities around the midwest.  Much work was put into this post, so many thanks to Jeff and all the forecasters at KMIZ.

Cold Start to December

Over the past six months, five of them (December included) have started out with below-average temperatures.  So far this month, we have only seen a high temperature exceed the average two times (from 12/1 - 12/11).

Attention should be drawn to December 8-10.  This was the timeframe of a major snowstorm that impacted a huge section of the upper-midwest.  Parts of Iowa, Nebraska, and Wisconsin got buried by snow up to 12" in places, and a widespread swath of 8-10".  Here's a great image of the snow cover.  Quite impressive.

(source:  National Weather Service, IA/IL)

Below are some links to area National Weather Service offices that were affected by the storm.  

Quad Cities, IA/IL

LaCrosse, WI

Milwaukee/Sullivan, WI

Topeka, KS

Omaha/Valley, NE

Looking Ahead

The Climate Prediction Center still shows December giving us below-average temperatures, with equal chances of precipitation.  Local meteorologists are expecting small disturbances to move through the area, bringing small snow events, but nothing big.

Heavy Wind December 9

On December 9, I celebrated my 30th birthday with a max wind gust of..yep, 30 mph at the house.  In Auxvasse, we recorded 31.1 mph.  Sustained winds were anywhere from 15 - 25 throughout the night and day.

 Here's a summary of official wind gusts in the area from the NWS STL office.

LOCATION                  PEAK GUST (MPH)      TIME

ST CHARLES      (KSET)        58              902 AM
LITCHFIELD      (K3LF)        58              804 AM
ST LOUIS        (KSTL)        56              811 AM
CHESTERFIELD    (KSUS)        52              711 AM
ALTON           (KALN)        52              850 AM
HANNIBAL        (KHAE)        49              705 AM
WELDON SPRING   (KLSX)        49              750 AM
BELLEVILLE      (KBLV)        48              744 AM, 911 AM
JEFFERSON CITY  (KJEF)        48              750 AM
COLUMBIA        (KCOU)        47              738 AM
QUINCY          (KUIN)        47              643 AM, 935 AM
SALEM           (KSLO)        46              945 AM, 1025 AM
SULLIVAN        (KUUV)        45              925 AM
CAHOKIA         (KCPS)        45              852 AM
PITTSFIELD      (KPPQ)        44              706 AM
CENTRALIA IL    (KENL)        43             1005 AM
SPARTA          (KSAR)        39              225 AM, 1025 AM
FARMINGTON      (KFAM)        38              215 AM, 955 AM

First Accumulating Snow

Last night, we were treated with our first accumulating snow.  A weak system flew through the area during the evening hours, and around 8:00 p.m., we experienced light (moderate at times) snowfall.  It was enough to cover the cars and mostly cover the grass.  I was able to get outside after it stopped to measure how much had fallen.  Officially, we had 0.2" here, and 0.3" at school in Auxvasse.

Keep your eye on the graphic in the sidebar to the right.  I put the snow forecast graphic from the STL NWS office.  They update it a few times a day during active weather.  It does look like the low is going to track right in our back yard, successfully squelching any chances for a big snow event here.  For some good reading in the next few days, though, keep these blogs in your tabbed windows!  Our friends in Wisconsin are going to get a nice storm! 

• OSNW3 
• Weather Scout 
• Tim's Weather Blog 
• NW Wisconsin Weather

Watching the Dec. 8-9 Storm

The season of anticipation has begun for me.  Missouri can be a very variable place for weather, and December can provide some impressive snow storms.  I'm hoping next week won't dissapoint (which was the story for last winter).

Up to this point, all reports about next week's storm has been favoring a southern track for the Low, with it passing through the SE corner of MO, through IL Northeastward.  This would put us in the shield of heavy snow on the NW side of the system.  Today's models however have trended the path more northwards, with the newest GFS model tracking the Low through Eastern KS, Central MO, and Northeastward.  This puts Nebraska, Iowa and Wisconsin in the crosshairs for the major event, which would be a welcomed sight from the snow-deprived bloggers in WI.

Unfortunately, that puts the Low tracking right over us, which would greatly decrease our chances for a major event.  Forecasters are still calling for below-freezing temps for much of the time period as a cold shot of air will be passing through just as the system arrives.  This may give us our first accumulation (and possibly still a snow day), but not a major event.

As always, much can change between now and Tuesday, and I'll keep the blog updated till then!

November Weather Summary

At the end of October's monthly summary, I mentioned that the CPC suggested that November would be drier.  They were certainly right, and had it not been for a strong storm dumping over 2" on us mid-month, we would have reported much drier conditions for November.  As I stated in a previous post, we experienced 16 days without measurable precipitation; this is on the heels of the wettest month of the year.  The more than two week respite from the rain provided a chance for the farmers to get out and harvest most of their crops.  We still have beans and corn standing in places.

As of today, we have not seen any snow here in Fulton.  There are places in Mid-Missouri that have reported a trace of snow, but none here.  Therefore, the November snowfall average of 1.6" was not met.  To my knowledge, we ran a deficit on snowfall every month last winter.  Look forward to more complete data this year.

Temperatures

November ranked 9th warmest on history for Columbia, as this data depicts.  We only had 6 days with a below-average high temp, and 23 days above-average.

Mean High / (average):   60.2 / (53.4)  +6.8

Mean Low / (average):  41.4 / (33.0)  +8.4

Mean Temp / (average):  50.8 / (43.2)  +7.6

High Temp:  76° on November 7

Low Temp:  27° on November 27

Precipitation

As stated before, we experienced a 16-day dry spell, which was abruptly ended by a 2.08" rain on the 15th (made the deer hunters pretty mad).  The 5-day precip total from the 15th - 19th was 2.86".  This means that 97% of our precip total for the month fell in this 5-day period.

Average monthly total for November:  3.85"
Actual monthly total for November:  2.94"
Deviation:  -0.91"

This is the first time we have had a deficit of precipitation since January.

Although we ran a deficit, we are still above the past two Novembers

For the year, we currently have a surplus of 15.98", which is unbelievable to me considering some people only get that much a year.  I am up to two years since I last watered my yard.  That's almost unheard of in Missouri, since we almost always have a grass-killing drought sometime each summer.

Data disaggregation of days with precip:

Missing something?  Snow graph.  Hopefully I'll have one for you next month.

First Snow Today?

There is a chance we could see our first accumulation here at MO-CW-1 in Fulton.  The forecast changed a bit overnight due to the track of the storm, but we still stand a chance to have some white on grassy surfaces by tonight.  At least we'll get to see the snow fall for the first time this year.