Christmas Blizzard and A Possible Severe Weather Outbreak Is On The Way

Well is this weather pattern busy enough for you? This pattern should be of no surprise since it was advertised and predicted since early November on here. So here we go again with another winter storm just like we experience about two weeks ago. As a low pressure develops on the newest surge of arctic air working it’s way south. On Friday I posted about the two scenarios based on the pattern and model data. It’s looking like Storm path #1 is the model choice with some tweaking from me.

Wednesday an area of low pressure will develop around Lubbock, Texas and work its way towards far southeast Oklahoma. This is when the trough goes negative and the models and I expect a bomb genesis of the low pressure to occur. As the low pressure goes from a 1003mb low near W.F. to 989 mb low near Springfield, Missouri. Then will start to fill back in as it occludes and drifts north into far northwest Illinois.

Now before I get to the snow I want to make sure people know about the severe weather possibilities. I’m starting to get pretty concerned about a mini tornado outbreak across portions of eastern Texas. By Wednesday evening the low really starts to strengthen and winds really start to pick up and turn with height. The area of concern will be from I-35 in Texas from Dallas to San Antonio eastward. The potential will continue overnight into southwestern Arkansas and into Louisiana. This will continues Thursday across the Mississippi Valley with the threat of Damaging winds and isolated Tornadoes. Here is the latest SPC outlook for Wednesday.

As the upper level low matures the cold air will really start to filter in behind the storm by Wednesday night. It will change the wrap around moisture into moderate to occasionally heavy snow across portions of Western Oklahoma into parts of Kansas. This will continue to drift north and slowly east into Kansas, Iowa, Eastern Nebraska and far Northwest Missouri by Christmas eve evening. The swath of the heaviest snows will likely run from Northwest Oklahoma to western Kansas to central and eastern Nebraska and a good portion of Iowa. Parts of Kansas, Iowa and Nebraska will likely have over a of foot of wind blown snow. As temperatures fall into the teens with wind chills to near zero.

I’ll have more on this over the next couple of days as this is a big time winter storm. As it will affect flights and driving conditions across a good portion of the country during the Christmas. If this wasn’t enough you should see what I have in the cards for New Year’s week. From California to Carolina could be seeing snow as southern mauler could be in the works. Right before the coldest Arctic air enough that make penguins shiver moves in the first 10 days of the year 2010.

Good night- Justin