Flooding Risks from Tropical Moisture Across the Intermountain West and East Coast

Tropical moisture from Isaias and Rachel will impact portions of the Intermountain West and East Coast states. Flooding, gusty winds and even a threat for severe thunderstorms and tornadoes are possible. Meanwhile, record warmth will spread northward across the Mississippi Valley the next few days. Looking for snow, the first winter storm of the season is underway across the northern Rockies. Read More >

Heavy Snow Event

March 6, 2008

On 6 March 2008, a convective precipitation band formed across North Texas and quickly transitioned from rain to snow in a 60 km wide zone extending from west of the Dallas / Fort Worth metroplex northeast into extreme North Texas near the Red River. The snow persisted for over three hours with accumulations averaging 7 cm and isolated reports up to 30 cm near the heaviest convective precipitation. Frontogenesis and the resulting ageostrophic circulation appeared to play key roles in not only providing significant forcing for ascent but also in modifying the vertical temperature profile to be supportive of a liquid-to-frozen precipitation transition. The presence of atmospheric instability led to isolated thunderstorm development, with occasional cloud-to-ground and in-cloud lightning observed in the band of heavy snow. This study reviews the complex interactions between moisture, instability, and forcing for ascent that occurred during this convective winter weather event.

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Flooding Risks from Tropical Moisture Across the Intermountain West and East Coast

March 6, 2008 Snow