© Lindsey TomaschikCentral park looked like a winter wonderland on Thursday morning.
Many residents didn't buy into the potential snow storm. That might have been because of the 70 degree weather we had just this past weekend or the fact that so far all the snows have been "duds" this year.
As the storm system got closer and closer the forecast model projections went up and up in their total accumulation expected. It got the point that it was not a matter of if we would see snow, but how much. A lot of that depended on where the convective bands of snow set up. One was on top of Pampa early in the system and that is why we got a higher total than projected.
A co-op observer recorded 4.4 inches of snow one mile northwest of Pampa. Another co-op observer recorded eight inches four miles west southwest of Lake McClellan. A public report came into NWS of nine inches for Pampa city limits.
Comment: Weather bands are moving towards the poles in both hemispheres. The cycle of extreme droughts and heavy deluges is part and parcel to the precursor of mini ice ages. Solar minimums and moving Hadley Cell patterns shift the tropical precipitation to distant latitudes, leaving drought conditions in their wake and forcing moisture into the upper atmosphere where it freezes and rebounds as extreme snowfall. Droughts of this nature are cyclical. For more info on this topic: SOTT Exclusive: A 'Blue Hole,' a cosmic connection and the demise of the Maya