The next in a series of powerful winter storms is now crossing the Intermountain West and heading for New Mexico before crossing out onto the Plains tomorrow. While as much as 2+ feet of snow fell above 6,000ft from Washington to the Wasatch Range, below 5,000ft as much as 6 inches of snow fell in Salt Lake City, 8 over the eastern Benches and there is a possibility of a further inch or two inches through today. A strong upper low with even a surface low has formed as it crosses over the Rockies, the enregy heads south of Denver into New Mexico and that means the potential for significant snow accumulations for Denver as winds are easterly east from the Plains towards the Mile High City. This is the best possible scenario for Denver, located 5,280ft up along the Front Range.

As moist air upslodes, it cools, condenses and rings out more moisture, so if your in Denver, CO expect the current snowfall to increase through this afternoon with the potential of 4-8 inches with western suburbs perhaps recieving a foot by Monday morning.

The system quickly pushes out of the mountains and into west and eventually central Texas tonight through Monday morning with snow still falling over Denver and the Front Range but by late morning tomorrow the focus of snow really shifts to North Texas and particularly Oklahoma and Kansas with the low entering central Texas before turning northeast but staying SOUTH of Kansas City. That is a very similar track to the previous storm. Remember how much snow the previous storm produced. As much as 12.5 inches in Oklahoma while parts of Kansas got buried beneath 18 inches. 11 inches fell on Kansas City, the largest snow total in 20 years. The 14.2 inches which fell in Wichita was the 2nd largest snowstorm in city history, missing the 1962 all-time of 15″ by .8 of an inch. It will be very interesting to see how much snow this thing produces.

As the low’s circulation hits the Plains this afternoon, it pulls warmer air aloft into eastern Kansas but the low levels are cooled by the refridgerating effect of the snow produced by the previous storm, so rain and freezing rain will affect eastern OK and KS including Kansas City but as the low intensifies and heads further E,NE, it pulls colder air down the Plains and across all of Kansas and Oklahoma by tonight which means as precipitation intensifies, so rain, freezing rain and sleet changes quickly over to all snow.

Here’s the latest GFS snow projections of the GFS for the next 54 hours.

Note the multi-feet snows over the Colorado Rockies, perhaps 3 feet over the high country west of Denver and also the big totals from the Texas-Oklahoma border extending northeast with a second bullseye along the Kansas-Missouri border. A widespread 12-18, locally 24″ snow is projected across Oklahoma and south, east Kansas. To top it all off, the low itself is expected to deepen into the 985-990mb category and so quite the storm winds up and that means quite the blow across the Plains with a fully fledged blizzard from the TX-OK border all the way to near Kansas City.

There is quite the rapid intensification of the surface low once it clears the mountains and enters a much deeper atmosphere in within it’s can ‘vertically stack’ overnight tonight through Monday.

Here’s the latest 6-hour precip and 1000_500mb thickness off the GFS at 24 hours (Monday AM). Note big rains and likely thunderstorms develop ahead of the front over central Texas while heavy snows breaks out over New Mexico extending east into the Texas Panhandle.

Monday PM, the pressure goes from around 1000mb to 996 and falling. This excellerates the rate in which warm, moist air and dry dry air rush into the centre.

Note the 540 line diving well into Texas on the backside of the low with increase precip wrapping around the low. This suggests heavy, windblown snows throughout the TX Panhandle all the way to Lubbock Monday morning and afternoon. Ahead of the centre, the 540 line is well north. So, expect rain, sleet and freezing rain to start throughout eastern Oklahoma and Kansas but a sharp temperature fall with rapid deterioration in weather conditions once the front pushes through.

By 48 hours or Tuesday morning (below), the low is down to near 990mb with heavy precipitation still falling as all snow over Oklahoma, tapering off over the Texas Panhandle. The focus of heaviest precip is now over Kansas with the centre now far enough east to bring a changeover to heavy snow for all areas. As the low intensifies as it heads northeast, it tightens up the isobars, bringing blizzard conditions across Oklahoma and Kansas Monday afternoon and likely right the way into Tuesday morning.

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