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Powerful Pacific System Impacting the West; First Significant Snow for Portions of the East

Power Pacific system will continue to bring significant impacts for Pacific Northwest into northern California the remainder of the week. Dangerous coastal affects, heavy rain, flooding, strong winds, and higher elevation mountain snow continues. Meanwhile, a storm across the east is set to bring the first accumulating snow to many higher elevations of the Catskills into the central Appalachians. Read More >

Amarillo, TX

Weather Forecast Office

Rare Late April Snowfall and Blizzard

Weather.gov > Amarillo, TX > Rare Late April Snowfall and Blizzard

Overview

A very strong late season low pressure system moved across the Texas Panhandle on the weekend of April 29-30.

 

Heavy snow began to fall in the far northwest Panhandles on Saturday morning, April 29th. Snow expanded southeast to Amarillo quickly Saturday morning, but accumulations were minimal or didn’t occur except for the northwest areas through the day Saturday. Snow began to stick quickly in central Panhandles including Amarillo after sunset on Saturday. Winds increased Saturday night as the storm deepened rapidly as it passed over the region and winds gusted to 50 to 70 mph (highest northwest) late Saturday night into Sunday morning. This led to white-out and blizzard conditions in the northwest before conditions improved Sunday afternoon. Event snowfall totals ranged from less than 1” in the southeast to near 12” in the far northwest.

 

The latest snowfall of an inch or more for the Amarillo area was March 6th, 1917.


Radar Loop

 

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Wheeless, Oklahoma

(courtesy of Stuart Hutchison)

Channing, Texas 

(courtesy of Sandra Richmond)

Stratford, Texas 

(courtesy of Savannah Copley)

Local Snow/Wind Reports:

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Snow/Ice

   
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Photos & Video:

 

Photo Photo Photo Photo
Oklahoma South of Elkhart, KS 
(courtesy of Esmeralda Marquez)		 Dalhart, Texas
(Courtesy of Mindy Rose)		 Dalhart, Texas
(Courtesy of Stephanie Ortez)		 Elkhart, Kansas
(Courtesy of Davey Wright)

Environment

More Photos and Environmental Data Coming Soon

Synoptic summary coming soon.

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Figure 1: April 30th: 00Z KAMA Sounding Figure 2: April 30th: 00Z 850 mb chart Figure 3: April 30th: 00Z 700 mb chart
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Figure 4: April 30th: 12Z KAMA Sounding Figure 5: April 30th: 12Z 850 mb chart Figure 6: April 30th: 12Z 700 mb chart
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Figure 7: Caption Figure 8: Caption Figure 9: Caption


 

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