A strong cold front brought some major changes to our weather Tuesday morning, November 29, 2022.
Thanks to the early arrival of this front, we saw our temperatures decrease throughout the day; instead of increasing towards the afternoon hours.
Not only did this frontal passage bring some cold temperatures, it was also responsible for our first measurable snow event of the 2022 winter season. Over the past 30 years, we typically see our first measurable snowfall on November 16th. That put us just shy of 2 weeks behind average.
A lot of us had to deal with a fair amount of freezing rain before we even saw snow Tuesday morning. In Omaha, we started out the morning above freezing, so we experienced light rain first. Then it shifted into freezing rain and eventually snow. We didn't see a whole lot of snow though. One of the biggest issues we faced were the strong, blustery winds. This reduced visibility greatly for commuters.
On top of the strong winds, freezing cold, and snow falling, some people had to deal with power outages. The freezing rain along with the winds gusting near 45 mph, knocked down power lines in some areas. Knocking out the power to over 6,800 OPPD customers at one point.
Since the cold front was moving from the northwest to the southeast, places northwest of the Omaha metro saw more snow than places closer to the I-80 corridor. Places like Norfolk, Tekamah, and Wayne saw snow fall before we even saw any moisture in Omaha.
This led to the difference in snow measurements. Norfolk came in at a total of 2.0" of snow. Eppley Airfield recorded 0.2," we barely made the cut off to make it our first measurable snow. We needed one tenth of an inch (0.1") for it to be our first measurable snowfall. Thank goodness we barely made it over that! Valley recorded 0.1" and Lincoln saw a trace amount of snow throughout the morning hours.
Any of the moisture from this entire frontal passage, stayed along and north of the I-80 corridor. Which is exactly what we forecasted. The totals from this event ended up lining up with our snow map very well!
Towards the late morning to early afternoon, we started to see the snow taper off across the Omaha metro. This was the trend across the rest of the area, too. Some of us were even able to squeeze out some intervals of sunshine in the second half of the day.
