Final Thoghts on Jan. 4/5 storm for Lawrence-very long

[sertorius]

The storm of Jan. 4/5 of 2005 is now exiting my area-we have low clouds which are thinning out a temp. of 14.9 degrees with a gusty North Wind-it is quite cold outside to say the least!!!! What a storm for this area-from Wichita to Kansas City, this storm had it all-1 to 1.5 inch ice, snow, sleet, freezing rain, and floods and even some lightening in KC. Def. this was a historic storm on different levels-(and to think that from Central Canada all the way thru central Oklahoma if frozen!!!!)there were 60,000 people in KC w/out power and with the winds kicking up, that could even rise over tonight. KC even had some snow accumalations. Lawrence still has a section w/out power and had over 2,000 w/out power (our pop. is 82,000). We didn't get the high snow totals and we may not even have the greatest ice problems by the look of the radar in the Ohio Valley-but we still wound up with over an inch of liquid precip which is close to half of our Jan. total (hope that doesn't turn out to be the end-if you combine Sunday with this storm, we have almost surpassed the normal monthly precip.) For an area that has not really had that many winter storms over the past decade (a few here and there, but it has been pretty bland here) this was a massive winter storm. Will we have more? History says it will be tough for this month-we just on average don't get over one block buster strom in a month-we have before but it is not the norm-esp. over the past 20 years (1992-93 excluded) But, for the heck of it, I'll take a little look down the road-I hear groans from everyone!!!!

Both the GFS and EURO are hinting at a massive arctic invasion beginning mid to late next week. Will be interesting to see future runs of the EURO-on the 240 hours of the 12z run today, the 500 hts are very low in my area-both the gfs and mrf sow this as well. It also appears that we may have the same set up next week as we did this week-The euro on WED. has an arctic front over Nebraska with a 996 low tracking tru southern Kansas northern Oklahoma-the gfs has the same scenario, but the low is in Northern Kansas-sound familiar??? If the gfs and the mrf were to verify (if the euro shows next sunday cold, I'll begin to believe this out break) the central plains could be colder than before X-mass and with a snow back in the Northern plains that will not melt by next week (ours will, but points North of Omaha-highly doubtfull) this could be some of the coldest air since 1989. Precip will have to wait untill Friday to discuss but it looks like a serious cold out break mid-late next week for the central plains. Per the gfs, it will come in two chunks and last about 5 days-the first Friday-Sunday the second Tuesday thru Thursday-so while it may be as cold as 1989, it will not be the 2 week mega block buster that was (of course, 1989 was close to a once in a life time event for this area!!) This def. is in need of watching esp. since temps. here will soar Sunday-Tuesday as we get back into the overall pattern of the sw flow that was int. by this shallow arctic air. At least for, now, it does not seem that the middle of Jan. will be boring weather wise for the central plains. Thanks for rading this and I hope it makes sense!!!