Southern Plains Ice Storm and Floods Grind On For Third Day

Ice making a street very scary in Amarillo, Texas.
Photo by Sean Steffan/Amarillo.com 

Early Saturday morning, it was still raining hard in parts of the southern Plains and a nearly continous dousing of freezing rain was plaguing other areas, especially northern Texas and much of Oklahoma.

This storm is playing out pretty much as expected, which is cold and wet comfort to the people experiencing the storm.

It does seem as if this is another over-performing winter storm, though, as the ice seems more widespread than many thought, and in some areas, the ice accumulation is thicker than many forecasts.

(It does seem that storms this fall have consistently produced deeper snowfall, more rain, stronger winds and more violent weather than forecasts ahead of these storms)

Black Friday was slick Friday in many areas, including Amarillo, Texas. The Amarillo Globe News reported dozens of car wrecks, and up to 13,000 homes and businesses without power in much of North Texas.

Most of western two thirds of Oklahoma aren't worth driving through, either, at the moment because of widespread icing. Some of the ice is more than a half inch thick there, so trees and power lines are really coming down now. Widespread power failures are reported in much of Oklahoma..

Flash flooding was ongoing early this morning in wide areas of southeastern Oklahoma, Arkansas, southwestern Missouri and parts of northeastern Texas after more than half a foot of rain fell in some areas. And it was still pouring early Saturday morning.


Ice storm damage Saturday in Oklahoma, via KOCO

The Dallas Morning News reports at least three people have died in that region in the flash flooding that's been going on there for the last couple of days.

As of yesterday, Dallas, Texas has picked up 55.26 inches of rain so far this year, so it's already their wettest year on record, besting the 53.54 set in 1991, says Dr. Jeff Masters Bob Henson in their Weather Underground blog

A few places in Oklahoma and eastern Texas have gotten an incredible 70 inches of rain so far this year. Baytown, Texas as gotten 90 inches of rain this year. Pretty damn soggy. 

Of course, many factors went into the epic Oklahoma and Texas rains this year. El Nino, stuck weather patterns and bad luck are all reasons.

But the situation is consistent with scientists' assertion that global warming is causing more extreme and intense rain storms, so it makes sense climate change might have played a role here, too.