Winter Weather Arrives in the State with Thunder Sleet, Cold Temps and Round 2 on the Way

Strange weather we are having here today, even for Oklahoma! Much of the state woke up to “Thunder Sleet” With heavy showers of sleet falling, thunder, and lightning. State Climatologist Gary McManus says this is the first wave, “We start off our winter storm with waves of sleet and freezing rain today, get another dose tomorrow, then a third dose Wednesday into early Thursday.”

Depending on where you are located in the state, there could be a number of things happening. Right now most of the state is in a Winter Storm Watch, “The storm is both colder and warmer than what it looked like last week. So colder at the outset in the vertical layers of the atmosphere, so we’re getting sleet instead of freezing rain. And warmer later on this week, so we’re getting rain instead of freezing rain/sleet/snow.”

McManus says There will still be some around on Wednesday and Thursday, but it does look like we will warm up enough to melt everything and see just plain liquid rain. He says we will be getting some decent moisture across the SE half of the state or so, but unfortunately, the Northwest half misses out mostly. It will continue to be VERY cold with wind chills between 0-10 most of the day.

Road Conditions will vary depending on where you are headed., with some being snow-packed, some being covered in sleet, and some just ice, depending on Temperatures. The Travel advisory covers Central, Western and Eastern Oklahoma. Plan on slippery road conditions. The hazardous conditions could impact the morning and evening commutes. The sand trucks are currently out-treating roads.

It will be mainly dry tonight while the next round heads this way. Mixed precipitation is expected, according to Accuweather.com, with total snow accumulations of up to one inch North of I-40 and ice accumulations of from a few hundredths to nearly a tenth of an inch of rain.

Wave 2 is expected to arrive at about the same time Tomorrow. Being that it’s so cold outside, anything that falls will not melt due to temperatures being only in the 20s. So far, we have not heard of many power outages, but with ice and sleet, that is always a possibility. It will be brutally cold tonight, so dripping your faucets might not be a bad idea.

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