Thursday, December 16, 2010

Cold Start to December / Dec 16 Ice

We have experienced a colder than normal start to the month with a mean temperature of 26.0°, a -8.2° departure for the period of Dec. 1-15.  As seen from the chart below temperatures have been below average, but of note are two periods of cold (4-8) and (12-15).  Both brought breezy canadian air with it, and the latter gave us our 2" mini-blizzard on the 11th and 12th. 


Ice Dec. 15-16

An upper-level disturbance is bringing snow to the upper plains and through to the east coast.  As it developed, it brought light freezing drizzle/rain to our area.  Barely enough to measure in the rain gauge, but it was enough to create a thin glaze on roads and elevated surfaces (enough to call off schools even).  Below is this morning's radar showing the long band of snow affecting the nation.


8 comments:

Josh Herman said...

The right hand side of your blog indicates you have an accumulating snow in the vicinity. What has Lezak go on tap for you area in the coming weeks? Any thing worth getting excited about?

Regarding the ice and school being called off. Ice isn't something to toy with. That ish frightens me. We are very fortunate that it doesn't happen all that often up here.

About your climate research in your classroom and the WI data you just received... the NWS in Green Bay put out a stat that 2010 is in the top five all time for precipitation. Perhaps that number wasn't a typo. :)

1 38.36 1985
2 38.03 1914
3 37.90 1906
4 37.44 2010 (through December 15)
5 36.65 1990

WxWatcher said...

Lezak has long been certain that a wet storm would hit here between Dec 21 and 31, and has just recently narrowed it down to the latter part of that period. Right now, he's not sure if it would bring wet or frozen precip, but it would bring a respite from our dry weather.

I hear you on the ice. We only had minimal glazing, but still had multiple accidents in the area, one was very serious. Definitely nothing to mess with.

Interesting note about the record precip data. I'm still somewhat surprised that the records are so low, maybe because you've had such a surplus this year. On the other hand, you don't really have any maritime airmasses to tap into that would bring those values up significantly.

Ami Jo said...

Brrrrr!!! I'm glad I'll soon be in Cancun! :)

The meteorologist last night indicated we should be receiving some significant winter weather this Thursday night, into Christmas Eve day. Any thoughts on this???

Love you brother!
AJ

WxWatcher said...

Tough call on this one, Ami. The forecasts will be all over the place until tomorrow night/Wednesday. I'll know more then for sure. We may need to come to Rolla a day early to beat the weather. If it materializes, it could be bad enough to keep us up here.

WxWatcher said...

...follow this blog. I will.

Ami Jo said...

I'll check it out, thanks. Please do NOT get stuck at home!!

Josh Herman said...

A Christmas eve snowfall. What's the haps down there WxWatcher? Nothing in my backyard from this system, which is good, because my LRC snowfall prediction doesn't include snow from this system, hehe. :)

Merry Christmas!

WxWatcher said...

Merry Christmas, OSNW3. A beautiful Christmas Eve here. We are in Rolla today, so I don't have any firsthand observations in Fulton. Through various resources (CoCoRaHS, NWS spotter reports), it looks like we might have anywhere between 2-4 inches up there.

We had a nice moderate snow this morning at sunrise, an absolutely gorgeous scene...especially out in the country. Officially, we have 2.8" in Rolla with a SWE of 9.3:1 -- a very wet snow indeed.

Given we don't have any major melting today in Fulton (not likely), I should get a pretty reliable measure of the total snow up there. I'll have pictures when I do that observation. Should've asked santa for a weather web cam ;) one day...

Enjoy your family