–>For those who just want the basics:
– Freezing Rain Mon AM
– Mon AM Drive Affected
–>For those who want the geek speak:
This is a profile of the atmosphere from the surface to around 15,000ft.
I highlighted a blue line; this is the freezing line. Anything to the right falls as rain, anything to the left falls frozen.
The green line is dewpoint and red temperature.
We’re just interested in where they touch. In this profile they touch on the right side (warm side) so at saturation… this is rain.
This makes sense because the warm air is being push in from the southwest making a wedge on top of the frozen air.
So, now we have rain falling at 5,000ft, but we cross the freezing line just above the surface around 1,000ft. Uh oh, this is a classic signature for freezing rain.
(*Note by 8am the freezing line is coming down as freezing rain transitions to just rain, it’s higher up around 3/4am Monday morning)
To maintain the cold air for full blown ice storms, we need a NE wind to continue the flow of cold air down to the surface. Thankfully, that’s not what’s happening. There’s more of a south wind at the surface so as the airmass modifies, it’ll continue to get warmer.
Bottom line, we’ll see some ice accumulation Monday morning that will affect the morning drive to work or school.
For most of us, ice accumulations will be less than .25″ that’s typically the threshold for power outages depending on wind.
Since the freezing line starts out higher, earlier in the night… the high elevations will see more icing than the majority of us. “High” meaning around 2,000ft. Those places might get .25″+ of ice so it is possible a few of you will lose power; especially in the higher elevations of the Ozarks.
-Garrett
