WFO Tulsa Jan. 22, 1999 Snow Event

A vigorous upper-level storm system brought both severe weather and winter weather to eastern oklahoma and northwest arkansas Thursday and Friday, January 21st and 22nd. This same system was also responsible for severe weather and tornadoes on Thursday in Arkansas and Tennessee. As the upper level system passed over southern Oklahoma and north Texas Friday evening, precipitation intensified along a narrow band across northeast Oklahoma and later that night across northwest Arkansas.

Click to enlarge image

The satellite image above was taken Sunday morning and still indicates just how narrow the areas that received snow were. Note the band from east of Okemah (near Henryetta) north to just east of Tulsa (North Broken Arrow and Catoosa) to east of South Coffeyville. Three to five inches of snow were likely common in this narrow band whose width at the time this image was taken was only 10 miles wide on average.

Obviously, forecasting such a refined area of snow is quite difficult, even for the most experienced and educated forecasters as well as the most sophisticated computer models running on supercomputers!