02.01.11

Major Winter Storm Part 2: Blizzard!

Posted in Weather News, Winter Weather at 3:58 pm by Rebekah

The blizzard has struck Oklahoma…my first blizzard was a pretty big one, and by now the worst is up around Missouri and Illinois.

I measured about 8 or so inches of snow here in Norman, but it’s difficult to measure just how much snow we would have gotten without the strong winds. I found quite a few 2-foot snow drifts, and some drifts that were around or just over 3 feet deep!

The wind has really been howling, at about 30 mph or greater, with gusts to 40 mph. The temperature this afternoon when I went out was around 10 °F, with a wind chill of -15 °F!

Oklahoma Blizzard 2011

Last night we got some heavy thundersleet (with quite a bit of lightning!), starting about 9:15 or so. We probably got around an inch of sleet before the snow even started, after midnight. The snow was done falling by noon, but it’s still blowing around out there.

Here’s a surface map from The Weather Channel, at about 3:30 am Central Time:

And here’s a map from 12 hours later, showing where the snow and ice has moved on to (there’s also a tornado threat for the Southeast):

Preliminary snow totals for Oklahoma, via the NWS Norman:

 

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