Saturday, October 10, 2009

North Platte, Nebraska Snowstorm

The Central Plains region of the country has seen a lot of snow over the last 24 hours. North Platte, Nebraska has had nearly 15"(38cm) of snow. You can see in the photo that the snow is piled high along the road edges, but not on the roads. I'm sure the road temperatures are still above freezing even though the air temperature is well below freezing. The current temperature in North Platte is 27F (-3C). Overnight lows for the next couple of nights will be around 15F (-10C). Here's a map from the NWS in North Platte that shows how localized the heavy snow was. You can click on the map for a larger view.
Here's an explanation of the snowstorm from the NWS in North Platte, Nebraska:
...Snowfall Records Shattered With The First Snowstorm Of The Season…

A new snowfall record was set for the month of October, when 13.8 inches was observed at the National Weather Service Office at North Platte
Regional Airport. The old record occurred way back on October 29th and 30th 1896, when 13.0 inches was observed.
Snow depths of over a foot and a half were reported in and around the North Platte area. Snow fell continuously from 8 pm CDT Friday evening until 10 am CDT Saturday morning. An unusually strong Arctic cold front ushered in temperatures from the upper teens to middle 20s by mid evening Friday. As a strong Polar jetstream acted to bring persistent lift to the area Friday night, moderate snow fell continuously across the Nebraska Panhandle into west central and central Nebraska. Because the airmass was unusually cold, this caused the snow to be rather
light and fluffy, thus the high snowfall totals. Below is a list of snowfall totals across western and north central Nebraska Saturday morning.

No comments: