Ticker for December 15, 2008

                
MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ...
December 15, 2008  December 15, 2008  December 15, 2008  December 15, 2008



News Flash: It's Cold

This morning's low temperature of 2F at Kenton is the COLDEST December
temperature observed in Oklahoma since ... since ... SINCE ...

... last year, when Goodwell bottomed out at -2F.

Well, rats.

However, this has been a powerful cold front, plunging Oklahoma from
near-record warmth to profound coolth in just a few hours. Here's
a map of the temperature changes in the last 24 hours:



Yep, those are Fifty-plus degree temperature drops since yesterday
afternoon.


Get Outta my Way!

Here's a neat image from yesterday afternoon at 2:30:


You can see the front defined in the Mesonet wind and temperature
observations, but also in the radar reflectivity as well. The
radar's sensitive "clear-air" mode picked up the boundary between
the cold air and the warm air quite nicely.

But that's not the cool part, er, cold part, uh, whatever.

Here's the cool part. Check out the image from 90 minutes later:


You can see that the front moved about 30 miles southward. That's
a pretty healthy clip! In other words, it made it from the
northwest tippy-tip of Comanche County to drape across its southern
border in 90 minutes (for those of you without an Oklahoma county
map, Comanche County is northeast of the radar; its Mesonet station
drops from 76 to 48 between the frames).

But *that's* not the cool part.

Here's the cool part: notice that Comanche County's southern border
is NOT a straight line, but the shape of the front conformed to it
anyway. You can see the front noticeably kink as it passes through
Comanche County, almost as if something is holding it back. What gives?

That's because something *is* holding it back: the Wichita Mountains!
Northwestern Comanche County features the Wichita Mountains, a pretty
little set of hills and uplift that rises several hundred feet above
the surrounding area. That topography was enough to disturb the flow
of cold air as it oozed through the area!

If you wanna watch a movie for it: click here:
https://content.mesonet.org/ticker/archive/20081215/fropa.mov