01.31.11
Major Winter Storm Part 1: The Calm Before The Storm
Nearly half of the U.S. and about 1/3 of the nation’s population is bracing for a major winter storm, to take place today through Wednesday or so. Since there’s a lot that could be said, and I don’t have a lot of time for an in-depth post, I’ll just post some graphics from the National Weather Service.
I might add that to my knowledge, this is the first blizzard warning that I have ever been under (I missed the Christmas Eve 2009 blizzard, which was the first blizzard in central Oklahoma in modern history and dumped 13.5 inches of snow on Oklahoma City, with several-foot drifts).
The National Weather Service has been using the following statements to describe this storm (taken from The Weather Channel):
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Norman, OK: “Obvious analog would be Christmas Eve ’09. For some this may be as bad or worse.“
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Kansas City, MO: “This could end up being one of the more significant weather events in the last 20 years in Missouri.“
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St. Louis, MO: “Potentially historic winter storm headed for region.“
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Milwaukee, WI: “Paralyzing blizzard“
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Grand Rapids, MI: “Travel…and commerce in general…could be paralyzed with near record-breaking snowfall.“
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Indianapolis, IN: “Could result in devastating conditions for central Indiana. Long duration power outages appear possible.”
The following graphics are from the National Weather Service Norman office
Note: we could get more snow than this, and with the winds, several-foot snow drifts are possible
Currently, here in Norman, it’s mostly cloudy, dry, 45 °F, with a north wind of about 15 mph. It’s hard to believe that within 24 hours we could have several inches of snow on the ground!