A Climatology of Snowfall Events over the United States Central Great Plains
Stephen Foskey is a PhD student at the University of Oklahoma, where he works with Dr. Pierre Kirstetter. He earned his prior degrees (BS and MS) also at the University of Oklahoma. Stephen’s primary interests in atmospheric science involve winter weather forecasting and subseasonal-to-seasonal prediction. His MS research focused on the impacts of the Madden-Julian Oscillation on winter weather over the United States (with Dr. Naoko Sakaeda). Now in the PhD he is focused on snowfall events in the Central Great Plains of the United States.
Abstract
Snowfall events frequently occur over the Central Great Plains of the United States, with potentially major impacts on life, property, and the hydrology of the region. A climatology of snowfall events is created with the goal to better predict snowfall at the subseasonal-to-seasonal (S2S) timescale. This climatology compiles event characteristics such as intensity, spatial structure and extent, and accumulation of snowfall events at long timescales that can be tied to atmospheric teleconnection patterns to gain a greater understanding of S2S snowfall event predictability. Events are determined using surface station data that are quality controlled and interpolated via kriging across the Central Great Plains from 1980-2022. Through variogram analysis, we discuss the spatial structure of snowfall events. With this climatology, we gain an understanding of the spatial extent, intensity, volume, and duration of snowfall events across the region. To demonstrate the utility of satellite snowfall estimates as a supplement to surface station measurements, a case will be compared using both data sources. The spatial characteristics of snowstorms will be discussed and related to trends over the time period. This is necessary to determine how climate change may play a role in the occurrence of snowstorms over the region, which will be essential to account for in the study of atmospheric teleconnection effects on snowfall.