Expected snowfall in Sequoyah County doesn’t happen

Area meteorologists had forecast as much as 6” of snow would be dumped on Sequoyah County from Tuesday night into Wednesday morning.

The county received a trace of the white stuff, and there was no evidence of it Wednesday morning.

Officials from Sequoyah County Emergency Management, preparing for the worst, had recommended extreme caution and staying home when possible until roads improved.

By Wednesday morning, travel was unrestricted, as if a snow calamity had never been predicted.

But this is Oklahoma, and while some areas may receive more than their share of snow — Poteau had almost 6” by daybreak Wednesday — others had less than an inch or a dusting that quickly disappeared.

“Any system that moves through this time of year always throws out a lot of unknowns,” says Jonathan Teague, deputy director for Sequoyah County Emergency Management. “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 has 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.”

But as the storm barreled toward eastern Oklahoma and western Arkansas, Teague had recommended county residents to remain aware and prepare in the event the storm was all it was cracked up to be.

That, however, doesn’t mean there won’t be other potential emergency events. That’s why Teague encourages residents to continue to be prepared.

“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. 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,” Teague says. And to have another way to receive alerts, he recommends Nixle, which has implemented its community notification system to alert residents in real time for localized emergency situations and relevant community advisories.

“Text your zip code to 888777 and you will automatically get alerts when we at emergency management issue them. It’s really neat,” Teague says.

In anticipation of Tuesday’s start of the storm, weather forecasters predicted it as a strong storm that 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.

Through Nixle, Teague issued alerts that the county “can expect 4-6 inches, with potentially higher isolated amounts in the northern part of the county.” He also warned, via the emergency alert system, that dangerous road conditions could last until this morning.

As forecast, the weather system produced a very wet snow, with large snowflakes that piled up quickly in adjacent counties. Roadways in neighboring LeFlore County were slick and slushy, and 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 was the track the system took. They also predicted that it would be the biggest snow event of the season.