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Three inches of sleet and counting

Posted Tuesday, January 27, 2009, at 12:57 PM

"Life is just one crushing defeat after another until you just wish Flanders was dead." -- Homer Simpson

Wow, the sleet and freezing rain will not stop. I carefully stepped outside and just measured an accumulation of three inches of sleet on the ground plus a quarter-inch glaze of ice on some tree branches.

In the last hour, it appears that the precipitation has shifted to a 50/50 split of sleet and freezing rain, as opposed to nearly 100% sleet earlier. Not good.

As bad as the situation is at Cape Girardeau, folks to the south across Northeast Arkansas, the Missouri Bootheel, and into Western Kentucky/Tennessee are seeing the worst of the icing. Some places have already picked up an inch-thick glaze. Here's one report from Arkansas: "ONE INCH OF ICE ACROSS GREENE COUNTY. NUMEROUS TREES AND POWERLINES DOWN...MUCH OF THE COUNTY WITHOUT POWER."

Winter Storm "Flanders" is certainly far from over. The national radar loop is quite impressive as a wall of water streams our direction from Oklahoma. We could see non-stop Winter Mix Surprise all day and night.

In fact, if the latest official forecast for Cape Girardeau (12:54 PM) is any indication, the really nasty stuff hasn't even arrived yet:

THIS AFTERNOON... FREEZING RAIN AND SLEET. NEW SLEET ACCUMULATION UP TO 1 INCH. NEW ICE ACCUMULATION OF UP TO ONE HALF OF AN INCH. HIGHS IN THE UPPER 20S. NORTH WINDS 10 TO 15 MPH. CHANCE OF PRECIPITATION NEAR 100 PERCENT.

TONIGHT...FREEZING RAIN AND A CHANCE OF SLEET IN THE EVENING THEN SNOW...SLEET AND A CHANCE OF FREEZING RAIN AFTER MIDNIGHT. SNOW AND SLEET ACCUMULATION UP TO 3 INCHES. TOTAL SNOW ACCUMULATION UP TO 8 INCHES. ICE ACCUMULATION OF UP TO ONE QUARTER OF AN INCH. LOWS AROUND 19. NORTH WINDS 10 TO 15 MPH. CHANCE OF PRECIPITATION 80 PERCENT.

Three inches of sleet and counting

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