December 8-14, 2005
Midwest Weekly Highlights - December 8-14, 2005
Unseasonably cold weather continued through the second
week of December across most of the Midwest, although temperatures
moderated somewhat toward the end of the week. By December 14
temperatures were averaging near to slightly below normal instead of 15
to 20 degrees below normal. In much of the northern two-thirds of the
Midwest temperatures finally crawled back above freezing.
There was a very large gradient of temperature departures
this week from northwest to southeast across the region (Figure 1).
Average daily temperatures this week ranged from
6°F to 8°F above normal in northwestern Minnesota to
10°F to 12°F below normal in Ohio.
Most precipitation that fell came down as snow (Figure 2).
With the very cold temperatures the snow to water ratio was
rather high, and although snowfall was plentiful in many areas the
water equivalent was not very high. Precipitation for the
week was well above normal across southwestern Minnesota and much of
Iowa, but well below normal over the remainder of the region (Figure 3).
At the end of the week the snow cover that had reached as far
south as southern Missouri and the Ohio River during the first part of
the week had considerably retreated (Figure 4).
With a continuation of below normal precipitation over a
significant portion of the region, there was little change in the
drought status across the Midwest this week (Figure 5).
Snow Blankets
Central Midwest
On the morning of December 8 a strong upper level low was located over
southeastern Kansas (Figure 6).
Snow had moved into western Missouri and Iowa during the
afternoon hours on December 7, and continued during the night and into
the morning of December 8. The heaviest snow fell overnight.
When the snow finally tapered off to flurries on December
8, eight to ten inches of snow blanketed the Kansas City metro
area (Figure 7). The Kansas City International Airport
established a new daily snowfall record set for December,
recording 7.3 inches of snow for the 24 hours starting from
midnight December 7, with a total event snowfall of 8.3 inches
on the morning of December 8. Some cooperative observers
across Kansas City and east central Kansas reported higher 24 hour snow
accumulations, with 10.8 inches in Olathe, KS and
11.5 inches in Watts Mill, KS. As the
system continued to intensify on December 8 snow spread across the
remainder of Missouri into Illinois and Indiana. Snow
hampered travel through out much of the Midwest. In Chicago,
a 737-300 jet slid off the end of the runway at (Chicago's Midway Airport) while landing, crashing through a fence bordering the
airport and into an adjoining road. The aircraft collided with two
cars, killing a 6 year-old boy and injuring his parents when their car
was crushed under the plane's nose. Four other people in a
second car and four people on the plane were also injured.
Snowfall at Chicago's O'Hare Airport from the storm
totaled 6.7 inches, a new daily record for December 8, topping the old
record of 4.0 inches set in 1977. The storm total was 13.5 inches at
O'Hare, and 10.2 inches at Midway. Following this storm snow
cover across the Midwest was one to two inches deep as far south as the
Ohio River, with much of the central Midwest under a blanket
of four inches of snow or more (Figure 8).
The extent of the snow cover was above normal for this time
in December (Figure 9, Rutgers
University Global Snow Lab).
The middle part of this week was cold, but not as cold as the previous
10 days as temperatures approached normal seasonal levels. A
fast moving system crossed through the upper Midwest on December 10-11,
bringing some light snow accumulations to portions of the
region and scattered snow showers over the remainder of the Midwest.
This system laid down one to two inches of snow in a
narrow band from west-central Minnesota southwest through Iowa and
southwestern Illinois(Figure 10).
One to two inch accumulations also were observed across lower
Michigan, south through eastern Indiana and across Ohio.
Week Ends With More
Snow
A low pressure system moving through the northern Midwest brought
more wintry weather to the region on December 13-14.
The northerly track of this low allowed some warm air to
return to the central Midwest ahead of this system. In
western Missouri, high temperatures reached as high as 50°F,
and by December 12 there were only traces of the 10 inches of snow that
fell at the start of the week. Precipitation across much of
central and southern Missouri was rain, with snow northward through
Iowa and Minnesota and east through Illinois.
Snow fell across much of the northern two-thirds of
Illinois during the early morning hours of December 14 before mixing
with freezing rain and sleet. Snowfall amounts in Minnesota,
Iowa and Wisconsin reached upwards of 6 inches, while further
south one to three inches of snow fell in central Illinois (Figure 11).
In Minneapolis-St. Paul, this was the first major snowfall of
the season with a storm total of 5.4 inches at the
Minneapolis-St.Paul on December 14, with snow still falling into
December 15. This was larger than any single snowfall from
the winter of 2004-2005 and the most in a single snowfall since 7.8
inches fell on March 5, 2004.
SDH