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Memphis Snow


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The Evans family formerly of Bossier City and now residing in Memphis awoke to a surprise snow storm earlier today (they have been friends of ours for a while).  Parts of the city were covered in 5 inches of the white stuff!  The airport recorded 3 in about 2 hours.  The liquid equivalent was nearly .3 inches.  So the ratio ended up being 10 to 1.  That’s a wet snow-probably had some huge flakes all sticking together!  The temperature at the time of the onslaught was near freezing.

Unfortunately for the kids shown-this afternoon, the temp is up to 34 and the snow has changed over to rain-very sad!  Late tonight, the rain may turn in to freezing rain, sleet and some light snow.  It will be a crunchy mess by Tuesday morning and that will add insult to injury to the drivers for sure!!  By the way, the Evan’s kids have had the pleasure of 5 snow days in the past few weeks!  Sounds great now until they have to make them up in June!

I couldn’t pull up the sounding for Memphis, but they had roughly the same weather conditions as Springfield MO earlier today:

skewtspringfield

Here as shown, the air was saturated and below freezing from the ground up to roughly 9000 Feet.  Thus, it was a snow storm.

The ArkLaTex may have a shot of this kind of weather-possibly late tonight (quick change over before ending) and especially Thursday afternoon-night-Friday morning time frame.

Stay tuned for the latest at 5 PM on KTBS 3.

Joe Haynes

Weather | Feb 7

Next Weather Change


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Our next weather change later this week includes snow across the ArkLaTex from Thursday PM-Friday AM.  The forecast process needs some ironing out concerning intensity and coverage, but it’s not out of the question that a couple of inches of wet snow on the grass may happen!

Stay tuned to KTBS 3 and KPXJ CW 21 News in the coming days for forecast refinements.

Joe Haynes

Weather | Feb 7

Storms on Monday, winter weather possible this week


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500 mb Analysis, Sunday Evening, Courtesy of RAP Real-Time Weather

Showers will begin to move in tonight through Monday morning ahead of a low pressure system that will move through late Monday.  In the upper levels of the atmosphere (see above image) a strong low pressure system is moving into the northern plains and it will continue to move south.  Since the winds flow counter-clockwise around a low pressure system, very cold air will be traveling from Canada to the ArkLaTex.  At the surface, a low pressure and an associated cold front will move through on Monday afternoon. This will cause widespread showers and storms, some producing heavy rain. Then, as the cold air moves in from the north, and the surface low moves to the east, rain will possible change over to snow early Tuesday morning.  Little to no accumulation expected.  The image below is a precipitation type forecast for Tuesday morning, blue indicates snow, green indicates rain. Temperatures will be very cold on Tuesday, with highs struggling to get out of the 30s and wind chill values in the upper 20s.precip_type1_feb7

Precipiation Type Forecast, Tuesday Morning, Courtesy of RAP Real-Time Weather

Looking ahead to Thursday, the cold air will remain in place and another disturbance will move into the ArkLaTex. This one looks to move a little further south than the one that will move through on Monday.  Winter weather will most likely develop with this system, with a rain/sleet/snow mix developing early Thursday.  For now, it looks as though the winter weather will continue through Friday, and if this pans out, we will have to watch for possible icy roads on Friday morning.  The  image below is the precipation type forecast for Thursday afternoon.

precip_type2_feb7

Precipiation Type Forecast, Thursday Afternoon, Courtesy of RAP Real-Time Weather

Stay tuned this week for all of the latest updates.

Marcy Novak

Weather | Feb 6

Super Bowl Forecast!


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Oh, how it would be nice to be in Miami this weekend!! While it is cloudy, cold, and gloomy here in the ArkLaTex, South Beach is experiencing sunny skies and temperatures in the 70s!!! As the Super Bowl kicks off on Sunday afternoon, temperatures will be in the mid 60s with clear skies and winds from the north at 10 to 15 mph. What a change from here, where temperatures will be in the low 50s and partly cloudy skies.

Marcy Novak

Weather | Feb 5

Skew-T Diagrams for Winter Weather


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Skew T diagram for snow showing saturated 100% humidity air, below freezing, skewed 45 degree lines in blue are temperatures of the atmosphere in celcius, 0 C is freezing or 32 F.


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Skew T for Sleet where a large area of the curve is above freezing
and saturated i.e. rain and a large area near the ground below
freezing and saturated thus sleet.

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This Skew T shows the majority of saturation above freezing
in the form of rain…near the ground shows saturation below
freezing…the warm rain above freezes on contact with the
ground-freezing rain.

skewtshv2

This diagram from the other night in Shreveport is all
rain showing saturation above freezing for roughly
10,000 Feet.

The above Skew T/Log P diagrams should give you an indication how meteorologists can view the atmosphere analyzing data from the weather balloons. The above diagrams show the basic winter weather scenarios that we have experienced in the ArkLaTex this year.

What isn’t shown is a common occurrence around here where the atmosphere is dry and rain is falling into it from high altitude, evaporating and cooling the atmosphere down to freezing and saturation. Thus sleet and even snow can happen with this.

Have a nice weekend.

Joe Haynes

(Diagrams are courtesy of RAP UCAR Weather)

Weather | Feb 5

Mardi Gras Parade Forecast


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After a rainy Thursday and Friday morning, the weekend is looking to be dry, which is good news since several Mardi Gras Parades are going on this weekend!

For Saturday morning, the Africian American Celebraion Parade rolls at 11 AM, and temperatures will be in the mid 40s with cloudy skies.

On Saturday afternoon, the Krewe of Centaur rolls at 4:30 PM, and temperatures will be in the upper 40s with cloudy skies.  So even though we won’t see any rain, it will be a little bit chilly, make sure to bring a jacket.

On Sunday afternoon, the Barkus and Meoux Parade rolls at 1:30 PM, temperatures will be in the low 50s with partly cloudy skies.

Have a great weekend!

Marcy Novak

Weather | Feb 4

Rainy Night In Shreveport


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There are a couple of ways to show rain in the ArkLaTex tonight. One way is with Mega 3 Doppler Radar (above). It shoots out microwaves in all directions that when reflected by the rain drops return to the radar set and are amplified. Then, the rain areas are shown on the Radar screen (again-above). Tonight, green coincides with light rain and blue is mist or drizzle.

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Another way to illustrate rain is with the standard weather balloon shown here. These are launched out at the Shreveport National Weather Service normally twice a day (morning and evening). The balloons carry instrument packages that record temperature, humidity and pressure as they ascend to the top of the atmosphere. The balloons are tracked with Radar so the wind speed and direction can be measured throughout the atmosphere.

An interesting fact about these weather balloons is that they start out at about 3 Feet in diameter at the earth’s surface and expand to the size of a house about the time they burst high in the atmosphere somewhere over 50,000 Feet up. The reason for this is that near the ground the air pressure is high keeping the balloon small. In the upper atmosphere, the pressure is low and thus the hydrogen-yes hydrogen in the balloon freely expands to the burst point of the balloon material.

The data retrieved is shown below for tonight:

skewtshv1

The parameters measured once again are temperature-plotted in red as you go up in the atmosphere; dew point or humidity in green; pressure on the left side of the chart close to the calculated elevations in blue and the Radar calculates the wind speed/direction on the right side in the black barbs.

Tonight in Shreveport and above, the atmosphere is saturated with the temperature and dew point lines touching i.e. humidity=100%. With the saturated atmosphere, we have rain!

There is also a temperature inversion where the temperature actually rises a few degrees over the bottom 3 thousand Feet of atmosphere. That generally means the cloud is warmer and the rain falling to the ground is cooling a little with evaporation.

The SW winds shown on the right side of the chart (barbs point toward the NE or the wind blows from the SW) indicate the upper atmospheric storm is still west of us. Thus we are in the rising air side of the storm which cools and condenses the moisture forming clouds and rain. The rain should last for the rest of tonight.

By morning, the storm passes and the winds become NW and the air sinks. This sinking stops the rain and evaporates the moisture. Tomorrow though, if the surface winds remain light, the sinking air above the inversion may warm it more and keep the low clouds in most of the day.

Have a good night.

Joe Haynes

Weather | Feb 3

Rain on Thursday, Nice by the weekend


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Rain will continue this Thursday afternoon, with temperatures remaining in the mid 40s.  Anywhere from half an inch to an inch of rain is possible throughout the remainder of the day.  Showers will most likely end by this evening, then fog and drizzle will develop overnight through Friday morning.  Drizzle possible on and off throughout the day on Friday.

The good news? For Saturday, even though it will be cloudy and cold (highs in the upper 40s), no rain is in the forecast!  rainmonpm

Precipitation Forecast, Monday PM, Courtesy of RAP Real-time Weather

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Precipitation Forecast, Tuesday AM, Courtesy of RAP Real-time Weather

Looking ahead to next week, another system will arrive on Monday and will bring us rain and much colder weather for the middle to end part of the week.  A low pressure system will move through north Texas on Monday, causing widespread rain to develop by Monday afternoon.  The system moves to the east by Monday evening, and behind it, much colder temperatures will build in.  Now, some of the models have the rain moving out by late Monday night BEFORE the cold air gets here.  While others have the rain staying around through Tuesday morning, after the cold air gets here.  If the latter is the case, that means that we could see some winter weather early Tuesday morning.  As of now, it doesn’t look to be heavy, if we see anything at all.  But something that does look to be pretty certain is that it is going to be a COLD week next week, with lows in northern areas possibly dipping to the upper teens to lower 20s.  Of course, this forecast will change, so stay tuned!!

Marcy Novak

Weather | Feb 3

Latest Rainfall Forecast


mega3doppler

Mega 3 Doppler Radar (shown above) indicates rain areawide tonight in response to our next upper atmospheric storm system approaching the ArkLaTex. Precipitation amounts so far are mostly on the light side ranging from a trace to a tenth of an inch.

The majority of the rain is still falling out of mid level clouds at 9000 FT above the ground coming from the Pacific Ocean. Some of the precip is actually evaporating before reaching the ground due to the relatively dry lower levels.

At this time, the surface reflection or surface storm system is still trying to form in the western Gulf of Mexico. Once this occurs, incoming low level gulf moisture will complete the job of saturating the atmosphere. This should occur Thursday.

fcst_qpf1

At the point of saturation, expect periods of rain, fog and drizzle on into tomorrow evening. Forecasted amounts become heavier as you go south. Northern areas could see .5 to 1.5 inches. Southern sections may exceed 2.5 inches.

Stay tuned to KTBS 3 First News at 5 AM Thursday with Meteorologist Marcy Novak for an update.

Joe Haynes

Weather | Feb 3

Next Week’s Weather


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Over the past two days, the NAM computer forecast model has been arriving at an interesting early next week forecast solution!  Each model run since yesterday morning predicts a strong cold front rolling through on Monday with showers and some storms.

Then, on the back side of the storm as the windy and cold weather moves in, light snow or snow flurries develop and possibly go off and on into Tuesday morning.  Temperatures are forecasted to be close to freezing or just below north of I-20.

Stay tuned for further forecast refinements on KTBS 3 and KPXJ CW 21 News.

Joe Haynes

Weather | Feb 2