MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ... February 4, 2011 February 4, 2011 February 4, 2011 February 4, 2011
Chinook (Sh)inanigans
Go west, young (or old) man (or woman). The Ticker is all-inclusive. You want to get some sunshine and be free of the snow? You don't have to go to the Caribbean. Just head to the Oklahoma Panhandle. Temperatures are up to 46 degrees as of 2:25 p.m. with plenty of sunshine.
http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20110204/current.TAIR.grad.png http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20110204/current.SRAD.grad.png
I would guess (much like my forecasting ability) that part of this warm-up is due to compressional heating as the winds come down off the lee of the Rockies. This is also known as a Chinook wind. The air compresses and warms as it descends to lower elevations. As you can see, the winds are gusting to over 25 mph in the Panhandle with a bit of a west component.
http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20110204/current.gustarrows.gif
The effect is manifested in the 3- and 24-hour temperature change maps from the Mesonet.
http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20110204/current.TAIR_03H.grad.png http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20110204/current.TAIR_24H.grad.png
It also makes for quite a meteogram, as you can see from the time trace for the last 3 days at Kenton!
http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20110204/kenton_3days.png
Gary McManus Associate State Climatologist Oklahoma Climatological Survey (405) 325-2253 gmcmanus@mesonet.org
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