Confidence Is Growing For More Significant Snowfall And Another Ice Event

It was the Dallas-Fort Worth area where at least nine people died in car crashes as of Thursday evening due to winter storms, according to a count by CNN. A 133-car pileup on Interstate 35 West in Fort Worth on Thursday left at least six people dead, according to Fort Worth Police Chief Neil Noakes.

This latest storm system will slide through the Rockies on Saturday, dumping snow from Wyoming through New Mexico. Snow totals will likely reach around 2 to 3 inches for cities like Cheyenne, Colorado Springs, down to Santa Fe and Albuquerque, New Mexico. Higher amounts will likely be found as you go up in elevation.

For the latter half of the weekend that system takes aim at Texas and Oklahoma, which could potentially see up to one foot of snow between Lubbock and Oklahoma City.

The current forecast for Oklahoma City is 8 to 12 inches during the 48-hour period of Sunday into Monday. The last time the city had a two-day snowfall of at least 8 inches was a decade ago. In February 2011 Oklahoma City picked up 11.8 inches, which also happened to be their fifth largest two-day snowfall on record.

Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Fayetteville, Arkansas, will be hit with not one, but two snowstorms over the next five days, increasing the odds for a foot of snowfall across this region.

There’s “the potential for two major snowstorms – one Sunday/Monday and another Tuesday/Wednesday – to affect the forecast area, as well as a continuation and eventual worsening of the prolonged life-threatening cold,” the NWS Office in Tulsa says.

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The Lone Star state

The attention will then shift to Texas, where record-breaking snowfall will be possible in some cities.

Confidence is growing for a significant snow event for the Red River Valley and surrounding areas this weekend.

The Dallas-Fort Worth area is expected to pick up 4 to 7 inches of snow. This would be the first February with more than a trace of snow since 2015.

If the city measures over a foot of snowfall in one day, then that would approach the all-time record snowfall for the city. In February 2010, Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport had a record breaking 12.5 inches in just 24 hours.

That storm triggered widespread power outages, downed tree limbs and broken transmission lines. Clean up from the tree damage lasted for weeks. These will all be concerns again with the upcoming storm, especially if they receive similar snowfall totals.

“Regardless of how much snow is received, the bigger threat will be the extreme cold we are expecting on the heels of the system,” the NWS Office in Dallas-Fort Worth says.

“Ongoing sub-freezing temperatures will plunge even further as another surge of arctic air arrives.”

It has already been cold that depending on the wind direction and the amount of moisture present, there has been the rare occurrence of lake-effect snow forming over some of the larger lakes in North Texas.

Other areas in Texas will also get hit with fresh powder including San Angelo, Amarillo, and Lubbock. The forecast for the Lubbock area is around 4 to 8 inches. If Lubbock ends up receiving 8 inches that would crack its top 10 snowiest days.

The NWS Office in Amarillo is warning of major winter weather impacts including hazardous driving, power outages, reduced visibility, and dangerous wind chills.

The forecast for this region is for 6 to 9 inches of snow.

Ice concerns in the South

South and east of all of this forecast snow is the risk for ice. Some cities that typically don’t experience wintry weather will have a slippery mess to deal with.

The first round of freezing rain will be possible Saturday night into Sunday across northeastern Texas, into southern Arkansas and northwestern Louisiana.

Ice accretion totals should be light, but just a glaze of ice can cause treacherous conditions on the roads.

As more moisture surges north from the Gulf of Mexico Sunday night and Monday, however, a more significant icing could be possible further south.

“This system will bring more significant widespread frozen [precipitation] accumulations… perhaps as far south as the coast,” says the NWS office in Houston.

Houston, in addition to other Texas cities such as San Antonio and Austin — as well as Shreveport, Louisiana — will all be at risk for icing by Monday, but the exact details in the forecast are still unknown.

Freezing rain is often difficult to predict. The temperatures at the ground level and up in the atmosphere need to line up perfectly to produce this kind of precipitation.

The system will then continue to track north and east toward the East Coast of the US by mid-week. This may introduce icing from Mississippi through the Ohio River Valley, therefore impacting similar locations as earlier this week.