Tracking Sleet and Snow

Monday, February 16th 2015, 3:51 am

By: Alan Crone

Posted 2:50AM:

A mixture of sleet and snow are falling across northern OK and southeastern Kansas early this morning.   Travel will be impacted.   This system will exit quickly later this morning.

The storm system continues to produce winter precipitation across the region this morning with temps dropping into the 20s early this morning.   Winter storm warnings and advisories are posted across eastern OK for the next few hours.   Please refer to the highlighted " red bar" at the top of our main weather page for up-to-date warning and advisory outlines.   This system should exit the region by early to late morning as the precipitation quickly ends from west to east, but road conditions and travel may remain hazardous in many locations today, tonight, and possibly into Tuesday morning.   Please use caution if you must travel.

Temperatures cooled quickly in the lowest level of the atmosphere this morning across far northeastern OK.   This has resulted in a fast transition process from rain to sleet to snow to the northeast of Tulsa.    The transition from sleet to snow will result in some healthy snowfall totals across part of northeastern OK for this system.   Total accumulations from 2 to 4 to inches may be likely along the northern Tulsa county areas with higher totals from 5 to 7 inches possibly across extreme northeastern OK into northwestern Arkansas.   Locations along and south of the Tulsa county area may see more sleet than snow. This would limit the accumulation relative to northern sections but still provide anywhere from 1 to 2 inches of accumulation along the I-40 corridor.

As I'm posting, we're still watching the system " un-pack" it's dynamic and thermal processes.     We could still some changes to the accumulation forecast during the early morning hours, but at this point, winter storm warnings do remain for a large portion of northern OK, including the Tulsa metro.

The upper level wave driving this system is quickly ejecting out of the Texas High Plains and will drop east to southeast across the state this morning.   The upper air flow will remain from the north-northwest to south-southeast for the next few days.   Another weaker looking wave is expected to follow down the northwest flow highway Tuesday, but the main impacts of this system will remain west or south of the immediate area.   We may see some light flurries Tuesday but the odds of significant winter weather will remain very low.

Temps are expected to remain cold for the short term forecast into the middle of the week.   The main polar vortex situated over Hudson Bay will help circulate extremely cold air southward into the northeastern third of the nation.   We'll get a glancing blow of this cold air with highs today remaining near freezing.    Temps tomorrow morning should start in the upper teens or lower 20s and be followed by highs in the upper 30s and lower 40s with some partly cloudy conditions.

Wednesday will be back down into the 30s for highs, but should experience some gradual warming by Thursday and Friday with some lower to mid-40s in the forecast for daytime readings.

Late next week the pattern once again may support a chance for some precipitation developing across the region. This may be in the form of some light rain showers Friday, but late Friday night into Saturday morning, a small window of sub-freezing temps may support a small window of freezing rain.   Saturday into Sunday the rain chances will remain and temps may drop Saturday night into Sunday supporting a chance again for some sleet or snow.   We're many days away from this system. Please check back for updates as we draw closer to the possible event.

Thanks for reading the Monday Morning weather discussion and blog.

Have a super great day!

Alan Crone

KOTV