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Garrett’s Blog: The Wintry Potential Sunday

For the rest of the week, temperatures will continue to climb each day with highs near 60º by Friday. A cold front will move into the area on Friday with much c...
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For the rest of the week, temperatures will continue to climb each day with highs near 60º by Friday.

A cold front will move into the area on Friday with much colder air spilling into the area for the weekend.

On Sunday, moisture will overrun a warm front located just to our area.

  • On Sunday morning, the air will likely be too dry for most precipitation to reach the surface.
  • By afternoon, temperatures might be cold enough for freezing rain in NW Arkansas and a very cold rain in the River Valley .
  • By evening temperatures are back above freezing with a light rain possible.
  • After sunset, we may see another brief changeover to sleet or light freezing rain.

With Sunday still several days away there are many unknowns and isn’t enough consensus among the guidance to know how much cold air will reside in the area. That said, a large area of high pressure will be located to our northeast. In the past, this has maintained the cold pool of air at the surface; especially in NW Arkansas so at least *some* freezing rain is possible.

Why freezing rain? For snow dendrites to grow there needs to be humidity in the ‘snow growth zone’ an area of -12 to -18º. There isn’t any. Without condensation nuclei or dendritic growth: freezing rain is the preferred precipitation type.

Right now, impacts do not look great: it don’t look like a big ice storm. But I think there could be some slick spots mid-morning into early afternoon Sunday in NW Arkansas.

Here’s how it plays out…

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6AM Sunday: Trending dry. If anything falls it probably evaporates.

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10am-Noon Sunday: Light rain or freezing rain moving into the area

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6pm Sunday: Rain with pockets of freezing rain across the Ozarks.

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As usual, the freezing line will likely be influenced by elevation so NW Arkansas has the best chance of freezing rain.

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This is a bit technical but this is the vertical profile of the atmosphere. The top is the 50,000ft the bottom is the ground.

There are 2 important things to note on this…#1 The snow growth zone is dry, #2 The surface layer is dry = most precip will evaporate before hitting the ground.

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At 10am Sunday, there is no moisture in the snow growth zone. It will rain from 1,000ft to 5,000ft above our heads.

It’s below freezing at 800ft above the surface. This will result in light freezing rain.

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By 4pm Sunday, all precipitation is to the RIGHT of the blue 0º freezing line. This means rain is the favored precipitation type.

So the bottom line is stay tuned to the forecast if you’ll be travelling on Sunday. There will likely be a period of freezing rain in NW Arkansas from 10am-2pm.

More updates as the data becomes clearer,

-Garrett

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