Blizzard Pics

I was pondering today just how fortunate I have been in experiencing mother nature's various tantrums. Tornadoes of all shapes and sizes, behemoth supercell thunderstorms, gorilla hail, wicked lightning, violent downbursts, dust/sand storms, haboobs, floods, sub zero temperatures, intense 113F heat, heavy snow (including thundesnow), sleet storms (complete with CG strikes!), ice fog, hurricanes, and now a blizzard. This one produced the most snowfall I've ever experienced (officially now 10-13 inches across the area) and of course the blinding whiteout conditions under 40+mph winds. Certainly this isn't the monster blizzards they get up north, but for these parts, it is major. I mean, really, if you want to get technical about it, the South Pole blizzards have got you yankees and even Canadians beat by a mile. :-)

Here is a satellite image from this morning showing the snow on the ground with clouds from the departing system to the east. Note the interesting contours such as Lake Meridith and the Canadian River Valley together where apparently little snowfall occurred?:



Video clips will come later as I have ALOT to sift through. Heck, I still need to upload my chase video and pics from last Thursday. LOL! I have a full photo gallery of the blizzard now online. CLICK HERE to view it.

Some samples below:



















We got into the lower 40's today and with full sunshine, alot of the snow melted. The rest should be gone by tomorrow as we get to 60F. A few spots in the shade will defy death by solar radiation for a couple more days. The massive piles of snow driven by the parking lot plows may hang around for a couple more weeks. I remember that from 2007. :-) Also, props go out to the City Of Amarillo, the plow operators and other crews who quickly dominated the situation and cleared all of the major city streets early this morning. It was an amazing feat. The big award goes to the city police, fire, EMS and AES for doing their duty in the middle of horrendous conditions in responding to calls for help and aid. True heros in every sense of the word.

Looking ahead, there is a storm system that may in fact bring a round of severe weather and chasing next weekend. Stay tuned for that. I'm looking forward to starting the new job on Monday, so I will likely be abit out of pocket next week. But will keep an eye on the weekend potential.