Christmas Eve Snow

It's not often we get snow on Christmas, and it's even less often that we get it two years in a row.  Last Christmas, the middle of the country was graced with a powerful storm that spun into the area, sat on Iowa for a while, and went on its way, giving millions of people a white Christmas.  Although we didn't measure much snow from that system, it was impressive and memorable.  Here's a link from last year's post. 

This year's storm was a different beast.  It was faster, and gave us a beautiful wet snow all day Christmas Eve.  We were in Rolla visiting my family, and watching the snow falling slowly through the bare trees was awesome.  I took the liberty of bringing one of my extra rain gauges on our travel to measure the water content of the snow.  It was a wet 9.3 : 1 ratio.  Contrast that to the nearly 20 : 1 snow we had on the 11th.  Geez, if this snow had that ratio, our snow total would have more than doubled.  That made me wonder on our trip home...what is/are the factors that affect this ratio?  I assume primarilly temperature.  I also assume that one could accurately predict the type of snow based on this factor, which could end up saving cities money on salt/cinder they throw on the roads...but I digress.

In Rolla, I measured 2.8", which melted down to 0.30".  In Fulton, we ended up with 3.5" melting down to 0.37".  The roads are great...dry in fact, which I presume is a result of the wet snow.  That's what led me to my inquiries above during our drive home today.

Merry Christmas!

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.

Dec. 11-12 Winter Storm

(Source:  NWS STL)

Update 8:00 a.m.

The snow ended early this morning and the wind didn't let up a bit all night.  With gusts sustaining in the upper 30 mph range, it made for some difficult snow measurements this morning.  I made multiple measurements around the yard, and came up with a 2.0" total.  This storm reminds me of the January 6-7, 2010 storm.  Strong NW winds made similar drifting patterns, although more exaggerated due to double the amount of snow then.  Pictures from that storm can be found here.  Compare those with this year's storm.

Here are a couple of pictures from the storm:

Update 12:00 a.m.

Snow is currently falling with vigor in Missouri again.  After much anticipation, we will reach our first inch tonight.  We reached our maximum temperature of 46° around 10:00 am, and by 10:00 pm we were at 17°.  Morning rain changed to a mist, and then quit for a while.  Around 2:00 we started seeing flurries flying around, which intensified bit by bit through the evening hours.  Tonight, at 12:00 am snow is falling at a moderate rate and wind gusts are reaching 40 mph.  The current temp is 16°.

I tried to make a measurement, and my best estimation is a current depth of 0.5".  Below is a video I shot and the coinciding radar image at 11:45 pm.

November Weather Summary

The dry weather continues this month.  After an extremely arid 0.54" total for October, we ended up with a slightly better 1.74" for the month of November.  The dry months stick out to us lately, since we haven't really experienced any prolonged stretches of dry weather patterns in the past three years.  I did a quick data check.  Over the past 36 months, 27 of them have exceeded the normal precip amounts, and only 9 have had deficits.  The months with deficits, ranging from 1/2008 - 11/2010 are:

Aug 08
Nov 08
Jan 09
Nov 09
Mar 10
May 10
Jun 10
Oct 10
Nov 10

It's interesting to note that the past three Novembers have run on the low side of precipitation.

November Daily Observations

Temperature

Mean Temp: 45.9°
Deviation: 2.7°
Maximum:  75° on Nov. 10
Minimum:  18° on Nov. 26

Precipitation

Average November:  3.85"
Actual November:  1.74" (-2.11")

Days with measurable precip:  7

Snow

We did see our first flakes of the year on the 30th.  Some midday flurries and light snow just blew around, but made for a welcomed sight for me.  It's hard for me to imagine, but our average snowfall for November is 1.6"

Other Weather Info:

Days with thunder:  2
Days with fog:  1
Days with wind gust (>= 20 mph):  20

Supercell Pictures

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1334672/Jaw-dropping-image-enormous-supercell-cloud-Glasgow-Montana.html

Follow this link for some awesome July storm pictures from storm photographer Sean Heavey