It Used To Be….
….“Only in Oklahoma” as far as weird and strange weather events, but, now it looks like it’s happening everywhere….. Â Right now, we are having thunderstorms with freezing rain, the temp’s around 30 degrees, and the wind is blowing anywhere from 30-50 mph….. Â Nice way to start the day…. eh?….. Â The deal is, until about 12 hours ago, we were in the high 70’s with sunshine and little wind…. Â That’s a drop of 50 degrees or so, and it is still dropping….. Â On top of that, the freezing rain is not letting up, the temps are still falling, and, it looks like this could be a major late Winter Ice Storm event, which it is already anywhere west of the OKC Metro area…..
I do have a Weather question for our expert (Mr. HS)….. Â The storms are moving on radar as they usually do in Oklahoma – from SW to NE – BUT, the surface winds are blowing 30-50 mph from the NNW to SSE….. Â What’s the deal?….. Â Inquiring Luby’s want to know……
April 10th, 2013 at 9:21 pm
Survived the bloody freezing rain and all….. Supposed to be a nice chilly 27 degrees in the morning and then we are going to be in the mid 80’s by Sunday…. Maybe it is only in Oklahoma?…….
April 11th, 2013 at 5:14 pm
You live in a wonderfully varied place. You must feel blessed.
April 11th, 2013 at 6:53 pm
I think we’ve discussed this before, Mr. Anon, anytime you want to swap places of residence just let me know!….. Playing “Survival Roulette” with Mother Nature is NOT my idea of being blessed, although, it is varied, but the only wonder in it is “Wondering” if you are going to be around after the storm to wonder about what the heck you’re going to do to repair the mess…. Ha!…..
April 12th, 2013 at 10:31 pm
The cold front was particularly strong on this system. At the time you’re describing, the front had passed and the winds had switched over to the NW. The winds aloft were still from the SW. Behind the cold front isn’t the best location for good thunderstorms, but there was enough elevated instability to produce some.
April 13th, 2013 at 3:11 am
I knew HS would know the answer and thank you for making it simple enough for even me to understand….. Mike Morgan put it in the top 10 of major weather events that have happened in Oklahoma due to the extremely quick change from Summer to Winter conditions – 50 to 60 degree temperature differences between locations ahead of the front and those behind it, combined with the severe weather and the resulting ice storm….. Some of those temperature drops occurred in just an hour or so….. It was fast and furious…..
April 16th, 2013 at 10:33 am
Well, it’s Oklahoma all right!…… They’re predicting the exact same weather conditions to occur tomorrow afternoon into Thursday morning….. I know it’s that time of year here, but, I don’t have to like it!……
April 16th, 2013 at 10:42 am
It’s a very strong system, which is why SPC (http://www.spc.noaa.gov) issued a moderate risk. But the system isn’t nearly as cold as the previous one.
April 16th, 2013 at 11:27 am
Thanks for the inside info, HS…. I had heard the chilliness factor was going to be lower, but, the problem I have is with the sorry Hail!…. I didn’t used to worry about it when I had my ’89 Dodge Raider…. It went through a hail storm where the hail was golf-ball sized and the wind was blowing it sideways…. All the other vehicles around it were beat to death with windows knocked out and everything…. I had only one side mirror broken and a couple of small dents….. There was a lot of steel in the body of that Raider, but, now, I have Jek’s 240SX SE and it’s a constant worry when this type of weather moves in….. So far, I’ve been lucky enough to avoid any hail by taking the car to my sister-in-law’s and parking it under her carport, but, sooner or later, I’m sure I won’t get enough advance notice and the 240SX will be caught in a hail storm….. Oh, Yeah, it also has a retractable sunroof!….. They don’t have, and won’t install any carport type protection at the apartments I live in, believe me, I’m tried to talk them into it!…. So, I’m racking my brain for a solution and hoping my luck holds out…… I Gotta Get Out of This Place!….
April 18th, 2013 at 8:08 am
Well, survived another one…. This one was really weird, in that the front set-up right along I-44, which crosses the entire state from the SW corner to the NE Corner, and, of course, directly through OKC area….. The problem was the extreme temp difference….. On the Northern side, temps were in the 40’s, on the Southern side close to 80 degrees!….. High winds, LARGE Hail, flooding, tornadoes, everything in the book was being predicted – AND happened!….. On the front’s North side, large hail and damaging winds were the thing – On the South side – Add Tornadoes!….. As usual, predicting where and when hail is going to occur is hard and they were concentrating on the Tornadoes anyway….. So-o-o-o, to say the least, I didn’t get much sleep worrying about damage to the 240SX (see Comment #8)….. I finally bailed and took it over to my sister-in-law’s and put it under the carport, which turned out to be the right thing – Hard hitting, quarter-sized hail did try to pound it, but, it’s undamaged – I Think…. After I returned home, we had another wave come through about 3:00 am – Heavy rain – High winds…. I haven’t checked the car this morning….. We are still having high winds and the temp is almost 40 degrees colder this morning than it was yesterday morning….. I GOTTA GET OUTTA THIS PLACE!!!!!
April 18th, 2013 at 4:52 pm
“If it’s the last thing I ever do.”
April 18th, 2013 at 5:39 pm
Hey, someone remembers that song!…… Cool, Mr. Anon!……