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Tornadoes a few hundred miles from blizzards: Crazy Christmas weather
Published: 12/28/2012 4:44 PM
Last Modified: 12/28/2012 4:44 PM

Murphy High School teacher Leland Howard tries to salvage items where his algebra classroom once stood in a temporary building at Murphy High School as residents clean up and assess the damage from a Christmas Day tornado Wednesday, Dec. 26, 2012 in Mobile, Ala. With only a handful of injuries and no deaths reported statewide from the storms, the head of the state's emergency response said it was difficult to fathom how the toll wasn't worse. (AP Photo/G.M. Andrews)

Kreg Callery walks in the snow near Cherry Street on his lunch break Friday. MIKE SIMONS/Tulsa World

We’ve talked a lot about how this week’s Christmas Day snowstorm missed us and tore up the east, but the same system produced deadly tornadoes in the south. It was an odd weather day.

But before I get to that: HEY! Did you see that snow earlier today? It snowed! It really did! It was a sneaky little snow event, too. We were forecast to get a little moisture on Friday, but a band of snow came together over western Oklahoma and actually made it to the Tulsa area.

So, there was snow that fell, but you couldn’t tell if anything ever happened if you were to look outside right now. Whatever snow fell either melted or blew away before sticking, at least where I am.

Other places did get some measurable snow today. Storm reports from the National Weather Service Tulsa office said an inch of snow was recorded in Cherokee County near Eldon, 0.5 inches at spots near Watts in Adair County, near Tahlequah and in Drumright in Creek County.

This is nothing to write home about, so I’m going to stop. We’ll talk when we get some actual snow. I’m tired of all these teasers.

But the Christmas Day system that coated southeast Oklahoma and much of Arkansas brought tornadoes to a wide swath of the Gulf Coast states. There were 51 preliminary reports of tornadoes in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama and 99 wind damage reports.

I snapped this photo from my phone about 2 p.m. on Christmas Day. It shows blizzard warnings for northeast Arkansas only a few hundred miles from tornado warnings in Mississippi and Louisiana. That’s a very rare sight, my friends.

Here is a video taken from a Mobile, Ala., Walgreens that was near the path of a tornado. You can see the cars just tossed around like they are unwanted toys the day after Christmas.

It was a wild weather day on Christmas except for here.

Now we look forward to the next system, which will approach the area early next week. It looks like it will be mainly a rain event in Tulsa, but there are chances for freezing precipitation either in the form of snow or sleet. Accumulations won’t be much, however.

And after that passed, the drought continues. That stupid, stubborn drought will continue to be weather problem number 1 in 2013, at least at the beginning of the year. Because it will take more than some light snow and a day of rain to make any difference at all.

--Jerry Wofford

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Almanac

Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun
Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec

	Temperature		Precipitation
Date	High Temp	Low Temp	Total	Month to date	Historical average
1	44°	16°	0	0.00	0.05
2	59°	24°	0	0.00	0.11
3	57°	33°	0	0.00	0.16
4	68°	37°	Trace	0.00	0.21
5	69°	29°	0	0.00	0.26
6	66°	33°	0	0.00	0.32
7	59°	38°	0.05	0.05	0.38
8	51°	34°	0	0.05	0.44
9	44°	36°	0.01	0.06	0.51
10	62°	37°	0.07	0.13	0.57
11	54°	28°	0	0.13	0.64
12	44°	30°	0.25	0.38	0.70
13	55°	40°	0.01	0.39	0.76
14	°	°			0.83
15	°	°			0.89
16	°	°			0.95
17	°	°			1.02
18	°	°			1.09
19	°	°			1.16
20	°	°			1.23
21	°	°			1.31
22	°	°			1.38
23	°	°			1.46
24	°	°			1.53
25	°	°			1.61
26	°	°			1.69
27	°	°			1.77
28	°	°			1.85

TEMPERATURE

RAINFALL

SNOWFALL

Weather World

Follow Jerry Wofford on Twitter for updates during severe weather conditions.

Tulsa weather milestones of 2013 (as of Feb. 12)

Highest temperature: 70 on Jan. 11 (Record: 115 on Aug. 15, 1936)
Lowest temperature: 15 on Jan. 16 (Record: Minus-16 on Jan. 22, 1930)
Hottest month (average): 40.5 degrees in January (Record: 91.7 degrees on July 1980)
Coldest month (average): 40. 5 degrees in January (Record: 21.7 in January 1918)
Most snowfall (day): 0.1 of an inch on Feb. 12(Record: 13.2 inches on Feb. 1, 2011)
Most snowfall (month): 0.1 of an inch in February(Record: 22.5 inches in February 2011)
Most rainfall (day): 0.91 of an inch on Jan. 29 (Record: 9.27 inches on May 26-27, 1984)
Most rainfall (month): 1.54 of an inch in January (Record: 18.18 inches on September 1971)
Highest wind speed: 30 mph on Jan. 30
Previous day with any rain: Feb. 12
Previous day with 1 inch or more of rain: Oct. 17, 2012
Previous day with any snow: Feb. 12
Previous day with freezing temperatures: Feb. 12
Read regular updates on Oklahoma's unpredictable weather and learn more about meteorology from the Tulsa office of the National Weather Service.

>> Visit the main weather page
>> Send us your weather photos
>> Meet the forecasters

Contributors
Staff Writer Althea Peterson started writing for the Tulsa World in March 2007 after previous stops at the Norman Transcript in 2006 and the Oklahoma Gazette in 2005. She followed her older brother from rural Wisconsin (with a public school that never seemed to call snow days) to the University of Oklahoma, but did not follow his pursuit to study meteorology. However, she tries to find as many opportunities to report on the weather as possible.

Staff Writer Jerry Wofford came to the Tulsa World in 2010 from The Manhattan Mercury in Manhattan, Kan. Originally from western Arkansas and a graduate of the University of Oklahoma, Jerry has lived in Tornado Alley his entire life and is one of those people who goes outside when the sirens go off.

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