I know what everyone is thinking. A lot of people got the “Blizzard Warning” text on their phone this morning. Then looked outside, scratched their heads and said, “what blizzard?”
Then, the sun came out. Temperatures climbed into the 50s and 60s.
But don’t let your guard down, folks. Inclement weather is coming.
The graphic to the left is a screen-grab – at noon Sunday – from the site wunderground.com. It shows the temperatures well above freezing. But that will change, I promise.
By the way, wunderground.com offers a radar, current conditions and even a chance to look at computer weather models. If you are curious about weather and interested in meteorology, I recommend checking it out!
Scenario
Not much has changed. The next system is still headed our direction and will be here as we head into the evening hours. The cold air has already filtered into places like Guymon and Boise City.
The cold air will be accompanied by light to moderate precipitation tonight and into tomorrow morning. In the past 18 hours the computer weather models – all of them, in fact – have again increased our opportunity for snow. The National Weather Service is now calling for a 80% to 100% chance of snowfall.
A Quick Breakdown
Precipitation will start to fall as a rain or a rain/snow mix tonight in some of our northwestern counties and build south and east. The mix will quickly change over to all snow as a cold front sweeps through and ushers in much colder air. It is still looking like the change over from to all snow for the city of Amarillo will be roughly the 9pm hour.
As it looks right now, your Monday morning commute will be quite white and windy. Latest models suggest snowfall amounts between 3″ and 5″ northwest of a line from Hereford to Pampa – which does include Amarillo. Added to that will be winds from the north at 20 to 30mph.
By the time you head home Monday night, latest projections show between 4″ and 8″ of snow for Amarillo. But the highest totals will be east and northeast of town where up to 12″ to 16″ is possible.
The trouble with this forecast is deciphering where the heavier snowbands form. Like last snowfall, some places could dodge the heavier snowfall and pick up a few inches, while right down the road a heavier band forms dropping an additional 6″ of snow.
