With widespread snowfall, officials advise stay home

With area meteorologists forecasting as much as 6” of snow for Sequoyah, LeFlore and Adair counties from Tuesday night into Wednesday morning — and potentially 9” in parts of northwestern Arkansas — Sequoyah County Emergency Management recommends residents stay home if they can until conditions improve today.

According to an alert issued via Nixle, the community notification system with which Sequoyah County Emergency Management has partnered to alert county residents in real time about localized emergency situations and adverse weather events, the county “can expect 4-6 inches, with potentially higher isolated amounts in the northern part of the county,” said Jonathan Teague, deputy director for Sequoyah County Emergency Management. He also warned, via the emergency alert system, that dangerous road conditions could last until this morning.

Teague said he and Garrett Fargo, director for Sequoyah County Emergency Management, would be “checking road conditions all over the county,” and provided updates through posts on Facebook and via media outlets.

“Any system that moves through this time of year always throws out a lot of unknowns,” Teague said. “A few degrees in temperature can have major impacts on what type, and how much, winter weather we may see. Most of the time, a few degrees in temperature can be the difference between winter weather and just a plain ol’ cold rain. I can think of a few instances where Sequoyah County was in the path of a severe ice storm, but the temperature was just a few degrees too warm.

“I grew up on Brushy Mountain, and I can remember a handful of times that we got significant icing on elevated surfaces, but Sallisaw, at the lower elevation, would just get rain. This is one of those prototypical winter storms that have so many variables — exact path of the low, surface temps — that trying to pinpoint anything down to an exact forecast is difficult. It is why you see 3 to 4 inches or 1 to 5 inches when accumulation is being discussed. There are just too many variables. Modern supercomputers running weather modeling data just aren’t quite there yet.

“For instance, elevation and terrain were factors discussed significantly in the NWS weather webinar briefing for this event. The folks who live down at Kerr Lake won’t get the same timing, and accumulation, as the folks up at Blackgum, Rocky Point and Long. A few degrees matters … a lot.

“Also, all residents need to remain aware and prepare. There are a lot of ways for folks to get different weather information in today’s modern era,” Teague said. “I highly recommend getting an app like StormShield for your phone. It can use the phone’s GPS and tailor alerts to where you are. I recommend having a weather radio. And to have one other way to receive alerts, text your zip code to 888777 and you will automatically get alerts when we at emergency management issue them. It’s really neat.”

Weather forecasters predicted Tuesday that a strong storm would bring a widespread combination of a wintry mix and snow across eastern Oklahoma and northwest Arkansas. All areas in the path of the storm were expected to pick up snow, with totals ranging from a couple of inches to as much as 10 inches in the higher elevations of northwest Arkansas.

The snow was expected to be a very wet snow — since it started Tuesday as a wintry mix of rain and snow — with large snowflakes that could pile up quickly. Roadways were expected to be slick and slushy, especially on bridges and overpasses. Overnight travel was discouraged.

According to meteorologists Matt Standridge and Zac Scott from KFSM Channel 5 in Fort Smith, “some of our biggest snows come from storms lifting northeast out of Texas,” which is the track the system took. They also predicted that this is — and will be — the biggest snow event of the season.

While the wintry mix didn’t transition into snow in Sequoyah County until late Tuesday, the Boston Mountains of northwest Arkansas and the Ouachita Mountains south of the Arkansas River transitioned to snow earlier Tuesday. That resulted in those areas having the potential to receive snow the longest, leading to higher totals.

With area temperatures Tuesday night expected to have been at or near freezing — rather than into the 20s — the storm is likely to be just snow, rather than including accumulations of ice. Snow was expected to taper off early today, with lingering light snow possible into this afternoon. Today’s high is expected to be about 40 in Sequoyah County.