9 PM Sunday... The contest is closed and I will post all the entries Monday on a special blog page. I will also comment Monday about the upcoming chilly air heading into Arkansas. The blog is getting extremely active and it looks like a great week ahead.
I encourage everyone to read the comment section and participate. You don't have to leave your name... you can be anonymous if you wish.
7 AM Friday Update... There's a great question in the comment section. Does sleet count as snow? Strangely enough, yes! The National Weather Service does count them as the same.
Let's kick off the 2nd annual "Arkansas Weather Blog" winter contest. The contest will go through March 31st, 2011.
This year we will have TWO contests you can enter with GREAT prizes. We will once again use "Price Is Right" rules. Whoever guesses the closest without going over wins!
Contest #1
Guess the total COMBINED amount of snow which will fall at the North Little Rock airport, Little Rock airport, Harrison, and Pine Bluff to the nearest tenth of an inch. The location in Pine Bluff is at the Water Plant and the location in Harrison is @ 3-4 miles south of the airport. So that there is no confusion... just send one amount. The total for each location will be determined by the official National Weather Service climate summary.
Prize package: One year free subscription to weathertap.com, two tickets to the Golden Corral, and a blog t-shirt.
Contest #2
Guess the number of days the low temperature will reach 32 degrees or colder at the North Little Rock airport. Tie breaker question... guess the amount of snow which will fall at the North Little Rock to the nearest tenth of an inch.
Prize package: 4 tickets to the Golden Corral and an "Arkansas Weather Blog" t-shirt.
SEND ALL ENTRIES TO weather@katv.com. The deadline will be 9 PM Sunday October 31st. Good luck!
About the prizes...
This year weathertap.com has agreed to a free 1 year subscription to their service. If you are not familiar with them, I have a link below. It's a fantastic site loaded with high resolution radar, satellite, tropical information, and now model data. They are always finding ways to improve their already awesome products and we're very, very happy they're helping us out.
We're also throwing in "Arkansas Weather Blog" t-shirts. The shirts were designed by the "WeatherNinja". Our KATV promotion manager, Rob Thomas, probably the best in the biz, found the resources to get some of these printed up for us!
And of course "WeatherNinja" has generously donated Golden Corral tickets. We all know the Corral is the place we eat LOTS of good food!
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| Check out that awesome blog t-shirt! |
8 comments:
Just for clarification, are we guessing snow ONLY or combined winter precip (i.e. sleet, ice)? I think there might be more ice than snow this year.
Todd-I'm guessing that 20 inches would be about the average snowfall if you added up the average for those 4 locations. You or the other experts could correct that if you want to. I will send in my prediction today. Thanks for an interesting contest.
Ok, I have my entries set. Without revealing, I think that someone will see accumulating snow in Nov. It won't be much, but just a reminder that Mother Nature will have some tricks up her sleeve this winter. Thanksgiving weekend has a chance to see some winter precip in Central Arkansas. We should be in a very progressive pattern and I wouldn't rule out some sleet or freezing rain in Central Arkansas and some snow up north. I would love to see a cold, nasty sleetstorm for the LSU game. I may be a week late on this prediction. It could happen in the next two weeks. As for December, that is when I think we'll see our winter. Again, the middle to later part of the month (10th-24th) will see some accumlating snow across parts of the state. After we roll into Jan, all bets are off. Dry and cold for the first half of the month, and then the thaw begins. This will introduce severe weather towards the end of January, and February will be extremely active. We will see severe weather and some snow behind it. I have a feeling that we will really have to be on guard late into the Winter season for Severe Weather. The last strong La Nina that I can remember was the winter of 98-99. Most of us know what happened January 21st? of 99. Bad tornadoes ripped through the metro. Not saying we'll see a repeat, but it's possible. Look at what happened last week. Impressive rotation for a early season storm. That's all for now! Happy Halloween ! The Weather Fanatic
Hello Everyone, I like The Weather Fanatic winter predictions, I do beleive Arkansas will see some winter precip towards the middle & latter half of the month, I beleive not only central & Northern Arkansas will see some winter precip, I also beleive that Southern Arkansas will see some also, I am with The Weather Fanatic on seeing our real winter in December & our coldest temps in December too.. I do beleive after the Jan thaw that there could be alot of fun & games for Feb also.. We Shall See... Bob
interesting how everyone i talk to thinks we will get a fair amount of snow. I am betting little snow this year as we will be warmer and dryer.
Alan
I like Weather Fanatic’s thinking. He is going out on limb and may be a little aggressive with his forecast for winter weather in December. I do see December being colder than January and most of February. The warm and dry spells will dominate the pattern. However, when we do get arctic air to intrude, it will be very cold and could be harsh. I just don’t expect it to stay around very long. I see quick shots of arctic air and between those cold fronts I see mild and dry conditions. The wild card is the storm track. If the trough sets up a little further east or west, it will make a big difference in the winter we have. We live in the middle of country and things can swing from one extreme to another.
So, I think it will be a winter of extremes with some very warm days and some cold ones. If we can get a rouge storm or two to track just right, we could see a little winter weather. We do need to watch for ICE in December and then ICE Mix and severe weather the balance of winter. The storms systems will have a tendency to pull very warm air off the gulf into our region. Most indications have most of that going just a little east of us for most of the winter and leaving us dry and mild. We will have to keep an eye on that. I think snow will be hard to come by for Central Arkansas this year. Something else to watch for in the weather pattern; when we have moist conditions it will be too warm for winter weather, when we have cold conditions the moisture will not be there. This will frustrate us all winter.
There is hope in the long range for the winters of 11/12 – 12/13 – and 13/14. One forecaster in particular is saying those years could be very harsh for most of the country.
Bobby Powers a.k.a weatherclipper
Well, If you take a look at what most of the experts predictions about all the extreme cold that should build in Alaska, Northern Plains & Pacific Northwest,That's how this part of the country can get the severe arctic outbreaks, As I stated before, I beleive we will see a couple of those in the Dec. time-frame. I feel our biggest worry of the winter will be a severe icestorm.Most of the time these arctic airmasses are very shallow & close to the surface. Picking which part of the state is anybodys guess. I hope we just get snow,Nobody wants to see an icestorm, I do think alot of us will see a decent amount of snow during the season. Hey, If all this low's bombing out so early is a sign of anything, Well, we could be in for some harsh winter storms.... Bob
The comments above are getting very interesting. Winters of 11/12 and 13/14 fit right in to the 4 and 6 year cycle that I started tracking for the winter of 1911/12. If that cycle holds up I think those winters of 11/12 and 13/14 could challenge winter records for snowfall and cold temps in central Arkansas.
However, I think this winter could have some cold, very cold shots of air,but short lived as some have already predicted above. The winter that I think it will most resemble is 1962/63. We had a total of 2.6 inches of snow, but in January we had about three Artic blasts with single digit lows.
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