Ceaseless Wind

Tornado Damage in Monett on the 12th.

It was a wet month for most of the region.  Springfield tallied up 7.14″ for the month, putting us 2.57 above normal. A large portion of the Ozarks came in between 7.50 and 8.50″ including much of Greene, Lawrence, Dade, Cedar, St. Clair, Hickory, Polk and Dallas counties.  All of the Ozarks, and indeed nearly all of the state of Missouri, had above normal precipitation.  The main waves of rain came on the 9-10th, 13-16th and 19-20th.  Rain was

It terms of extreme weather, the month was characterized by a tornadic supercell early on the morning of the 13th.  The heavy rains were a part of the day of the tornadoes too and in fact the period from the 12-16th was quite soggy.  The rainfall on May 19-20 caused the most problems as it occurred after the other main rains of the month and hence fell on nearly saturated ground.  A great summary of this rain can be viewed here.

Temperatures averaged very close to normal and were generally not extreme at all.  No nineties occurred, the hottest day was 87 on the 27th which did begin a run of solid eighty-degree days defining the warmest stretch of the month.

The month started uneventful and once again chilly for the season.  But a pattern shift was occurring that would shut down the cold air express for at least the beginning of the month.  The temperature was able to rise to above fifty again by the 4th and stayed above that mark through the weekend of the 6-7th.

The pattern shift that was underway featured a longwave trough with several shortwaves rotating around it starting on Monday the 8th.  This pumped warm air up into the Ozarks the 8-10th.  We reached a high of 76 degrees on Wednesday the 9th.  This pattern also brought about several minor chances for severe storms in the Ozarks, the only one to materialize was on the same day as the warmth.  A few severe storm warnings resulted and even a few radar indicated tornado warnings were hoisted for McDonald county northward through Newton and Jasper.

The Ozarks then slipped ino a cold funk!  The next seven days saw highs only in the forties with 45 degrees recorded three days in a row and one day, the 13th, were the high only reached 42.

Hints that the weekend of the 20/21st might actually have snow started to show up almost a week before it actually did snow.  The anomalous weather system which produced the winter precipitation was a strong cut-off low.  Ultimately, the storm dump good quantities of snow in the western Ozarks with a mixture of rain, sleet, ice and snow in a narrow band and all rain in eastern sections of the viewing area.  My blog on that storm can be found here with the NWS summary of the snow here.

More moderation kicked in after this storm including another seventy-degree day on the 23rd.  Two moderate cyclones affected the area, one late Wednesday and into Thursday the 25th and another on Saturday the 27th.

The storm on the 25th dumped its heaviest rain over extreme southwestern and southern Missouri where 2″ plus totals were common.

The month ended on a warm and dry note.  In fact, the high on the 31st reached 84, the first eighty-degree day since September 27 of 2009.  High winds and low humidity also caused a red flag warnings to be posted into the beginning of April.

The month started with a small temperature rally and the high actually reached 41 on the 3rd.  Warm, moist air over a chilly ground lead to a fantastic ice fog on the morning of the 3rd.

Ice Fog Coats Leaves. Photo by Leah Ikerd

But during these opening days, more winter weather was taking shape.  A snow and sleet system came up out of Arkansas on the 4th with mainly light totals.  But a bigger storm was on the horizon for the upcoming 6th and 7th.  Snow bands set up on the evening of the 6th laying down snow in portions of St. Clair, Vernon, Benton, Cedar and Hickory counties.

But the main thrust of this storm had always had its sights on northern Arkansas (again) and by Monday morning, areas of Fulton, Baxter, Sharp, Izard, Stone had picked up anywhere from 1.5 to 6″ of snow.  More heavy snow fell in this region later in the day but warm temperatures caused some of the snow to melt during the event. Little Rock summary link.

Snow Totals February 8th, 2010

 The Missouri portion of this storm was pretty decent too especially the final totals north of Springfield which were as high as 7 or 8″ in a few places. The Springfield summary link.

This snow was followed by the coldest air of the month with lows dipping  into the single digits and cold wind chills around the 9th.

Although a threat loomed of some rain/snow mix around the 18th through the 21st, the period actually ended quite warm, consisting of a stretch of above normal temperatures (the onlyof the month) with the highest being 58 degrees on the 20th.

The last days of the month tried to rally some warmer days too but they still failed to reach to normal levels.

The month was a cold and dry one overall.  The average temperature was 30.6 degrees which was the 15th coolest February for Springfield but other observation sites in Missouri ranked in the top ten coolest.

We had 2.3″ of snow officially in Springfield.

The Springfield National Weather Service has a collection of stats and reviews for the month here.

Bitter cold air started out the new month, year and decade.

A cold front arrived on December 31st and set the pace for a very cold period.  The air over the first weekend of the month was cold enough to support pure snow as a storm system came at the Ozarks from the northwest.  The snow started Saturday evening and didn’t taper off until late Sunday in many areas.  Widespread 1-4 inch totals were observed.

NWS Snowfall Map from 01/04

Cold continued to press in.  We had our first official sub-zero lows since 2003 on the mornings of the 4th and 5th with -1 and -4 respectively.

Another storm started to take shape for Wednesday the 6th.  This storm spread snow to the tune of 1-4+ inches with the heaviest to the north.  Some freezing rain occurred with this weather system over northwest Arkansas as well.

Cold air made another assault in the wake of this storm.  Thursday morning the 7th was full of wind gusts over 30 mph, snow, blowing snow, temperatures in the single digits and wind chills between -10 and -20!  The wind chill advisories lasted until Friday night when the winds finally back off a bit.  Clouds lingered behind the low over the Great Lakes and caused a nearly constant observation of very light snow flurries through Saturday morning.  A record low of -5 on Saturday morning was not  reached in the morning because of the “warming” effect of these clouds but strangly was tied because of a midnight temperature fall to that level!  The coldest morning then went on to become -7 early on Sunday morning.

The weeked showed improvement.  The sun peeked out Saturday and even more so on Sunday.  The end of the 10 consectuative sub-freezing  days ended on Monday with a high of 36.  In fact, we went from a low of -7 on the 10th to a high four days later of 55!  This was the start of a general warming trend which steadily improved for the next several weeks. 

 The period from the 13th through the 23rd was a mild to warm one with all readings above seasonal norms and many well above.   The highest temperature was 61 degrees on the 19th.

Several rain systems affected the Ozarks the 20-23rd.   The heaviest was on Saturday the 23rd.

Rain Totals for January 17-24

It became apparent around the weekend of the 23-24 that a winter storm was headed for the Ozarks for late in the workweek.

This of course came to pass as a major storm for the Ozarks on the 28th and 29th.  While Springfield officially picked up 5.2″ inches, many locations passed the 6″ mark and north central Arkansas received upwards of a foot!  My story of this storm is in another blog which I will link from here soon.

The month came in below normal by almost 4 degrees, making 6 of the last 7 months much cooler than normal.  The late month storm pushed our snow total to 11.9 inches for the month and 13.7 for the 2009-2010 season.

As always, an excellent climate summary from the National Weather Service with particular attention to statistics can be found here.

The first day of the month was mild but is was the exception to what was a clearly established trend toward colder weather.  In fact, the coldest air of the season settled in in the wake of a deepening storm on the 2nd.

We were slightly a flurry over the possibility of snow flurries on Wednesday the 2nd and some snow did fly that afternoon in Spirngfield and points to the east,  Winter precipitation again occurred the following Sunday the 6th with reports of light sleet and snow again mostly east of Springfield.

All eyes started staring at a big storm for the central and northern plains for December 8-9 and what affect it would have on the Ozarks.  As the event drew near, it was obvious the the Ozarks were not going to be significantly impacted by winter precipitation.

Flurries did fly on Wednesday the 9th on what turned out to the a very blustery day.  Wind gusts overnight in the wake of the deepening cyclone over Illinois went to 43 mph in Springfield, 41 in West Plains and 45 in Rolla!  The sustained strong winds during the day along with temperatures in the teens produced wind chills in the single digits.

Map at 6 a.m. 12/9/2009Huge Snow of December 8-9

After a bitter cold 6 above low on the morning of the 10 followed by 17  the next morning, some moderation to near or above normal temperatures arrived for the weekend of the 12-13th.

The 14th through Christmas Eve was a fairly mild period with only trace amounts of precipitation.  But around the 18tth, long range models starting showing the possibilities of a big snow near or in the Ozarks which would time out to give us a White Christmas!

The storm did eventually form with the hardest hit areas in Oklahoma and the northern plains.  The Ozarks saw trace to one inch amounts from Springfield east while the totals went up to 4-6″ close to the Kansas border. Link to the National Weather Service review.

Another snow came our way in the final week of the month.  A shortwave in the warm sector produced snow overnight into the 30th.  The snow band lifted north and pivoted to the northwest overnight and early in to Wednesday the 30th.  Amounts of 1-3″ were common in areas to the northwest of Springfield.

The last day of the year and the month was us sitting on the edge of a cold air plunge that would last well into the new year.

The month ended up four degrees below normal.  We had eight days where the thermometer failed to rise above freezing.  While snow threatened several times, Springfield ended up with 1.8″ for the month. 

This is the fifth month of the last six which recorded below normal temperatures. An excellent review of the monthly temperature and precipitation patterns has been produced by the Springfield National Weather Service.

Temperature Departure from Normal November 2009

November 2009 completely reversed the pattern seen in the previous month!

The weather started out great and completely different than the month we had just finished.  A pattern shift allowed temperatures to climb to above normal for the first half of the month.  Two mostly dry fronts swept through on the 2nd and the 4th. The period from the 5 to the 9th was indeed very warm andin particular the weekend of the 7-8th was very warm and pleasant with highs in the middle or even upper 70’s!  The highest Springfield temperature was 76 degrees on the 7th.

The second week of the month was mild and uneventful too.  And dry, Springfield didn’t record any measurable precipitation until the 15-18th.  In fact, this stretch of 4 days comprised the entire month’s precipitation total of 1.13″ which is 3.33″ below normal for the month.

A cool snap finally hit from the 16th to the 18th.  A second rush of cold air arrived just before Thanksgiving with temperatures once again rising to much above normal right after the holiday.  The final day was cool and the start of a chilly run of weather that would define the beginning of December.

In all, 22 of the 30 days saw high temperatures rise to sixty or higher, 5 were seventy or higher!

Total Precipitation Departure November 2009