Post Storm Blog

Let me start by telling you how awesome my coworkers are at KAIT. Most of them, you do not see on the TV, but they work their tails off. Some people at work right now have been at this building for 24-36 hours. Some are people that are relatively new to this business and some are managers that have been in the TV business for years. In times like this, you really can get a grasp of how well a team can work together. Between cars in ditches, to power flickering, to picking up others at home, to making the coffee... we have worked together and even had a little bit of fun. I'm proud to work with them.

 And how about a round of applause for Blake Guinn! Not only did he make it to work with the help of one of our managers, but he anchored the morning show, produced the Midday show, and then anchored the Midday show! He did all of this while smiling! Good stuff!

But, enough of what happened at KAIT. Let's talk about the storm. This storm was in our forecast since last Monday night and I'm very pleased with the team's forecast. Much of the storm was highly predictable, but winter storms ALWAYS throw a curve ball. Sometimes it is a shift north or south, sometimes the timing is off a little, but this one threw a curve ball at the last second.

We knew we would not have much snow because of the temperature profile that I blogged about earlier. We knew it would be mostly freezing rain and sleet. But the curve ball was the amount of sleet! We knew we would have Thundersleet. In fact, we talked about it for a few days. But, when those thunderstorms came through, they dropped sleet at a massive rate! Add in that we had some wind blowing 20-30 mph and the sleet drifts were quite impressive!

All in all, I'm happy with the forecast. Here are some of the numbers reported to the National Weather Service. I know some of you may have had less or more. Feel free to post your location and amounts to share with everyone. Here are the NWS reports:

• Biggers: 4.50" of sleet and 2.5" of snow
• Jonesboro: 3.5" of sleet
• Pocahontas: 4.5" of sleet/snow
• Blytheville: 4" of sleet, 1/8" of ice, and 3/4" of snow
• Paragould: 3" of sleet
• Imboden: 4" of sleet, 0.10" ice
• Senath: 4" of sleet

As I said, the drifts were impressive! Here are some pics of the sleet drifts caused by the wind:

From Lori Fitts:

From Leann Jones in Senath:

From Paul Coffman:

From Grant Pickney (and his wife Mallory!):

Stay inside, if you can. The roads are still bad. 3-4" of sleet is different than 3-4" of snow. It melts slower and is like driving on thick sand.

Have a good day!