Ramblings of a Graduate Student

Numerical weather prediction models are in fairly good agreement that there is a potential for a significant winter storm across the southern portion of the United States mid-to-late week.  As I indicated yesterday, one of the main ingredients necessary for a winter storm (cold air) should be in place.  What about the other two, moisture and a source of lift?  Well, we’ll leave the moisture question for another night, but the source of lift can be identified looking at satellite imagery of the pacific.

The white areas circled in yellow (image below) are associated with a mid-level shortwave trough.  Shortwave troughs are often described (incorrectly) by meteorologists as a “disturbance”, “impulse”, or “piece of energy”.  As you can see, this shortwave trough is still way out in the pacific and the exact track of it is still anyone’s (or any model’s) guess.  Currently, most medium range forecast models indicate that the shortwave trough will track across northern Texas into southern Arkansas.  On this track, a good portion of Oklahoma and portions of northern Arkansas will be favored for some sort of wintry precipitation.  At this point, it is too far in the future to pinpoint what kind and how much wintry precipitation will fall, but people in the southern plains should begin to prepare for a potential winter storm and pay close attention to forecasts over the coming days.