Since NW Oklahoma is finally seeing a lot of moisture with the past several weather systems I assume snow melt will have great impact on water returning toward Canton Lake? I think I heard that around Woodward/Fort Supply there must be enough runoff to work its way toward Canton and eventually toward OKC.

Can anyone verify how much snow melt in NW Oklahoma impacts Canton Lake and the North Canadian River?

To keep it in perspective, it takes on average 10 inches of snow to equal 1 inch of rain and with snow the moisture is spread across 2 or 3 days instead of one event.

The snow we have been receiving has been extremely wet -- I haven't seen snow this wet in many years.

To keep it in perspective, it takes on average 10 inches of snow to equal 1 inch of rain and with snow the moisture is spread across 2 or 3 days instead of one event.
It can vary greatly depending on the snow, I know most of our snow events that come from the north are closer to 12" snow=1" rain, if they are on a Pacific front it is closer to the 10/1. This last event that was pulling Gulf moisture in was much wetter than most of the snow we get, at best probably an 8/1 by the time it got up here.

It can vary greatly depending on the snow, I know most of our snow events that come from the north are closer to 12" snow=1" rain, if they are on a Pacific front it is closer to the 10/1. This last event that was pulling Gulf moisture in was much wetter than most of the snow we get, at best probably an 8/1 by the time it got up here.

Exactly. 10 to 1 is just an easy guideline to go by. Alva I think got somewhere around 13 inches of snow with this last system. It is hard to say how much liquid they got, but by most accounts it was probably close to 2 inches of liquid...a very high concentration of liquid in the snow crystals.

While it helps don’t expect any run off from it…. It will help moisten up the soil and if they have good rains later that’s when you can expect to start seeing some run off.

Breaking the drought to the point where we start seeing much run off is likely going to take several months in total…… Even then it might take several tropical systems later this year to truly break the drought that is so entrenched in the middle part of the nation.

Also snow in the far western parts of the state have a tendency to hold less water than snows further to the east.

Exactly. 10 to 1 is just an easy guideline to go by. Alva I think got somewhere around 13 inches of snow with this last system. It is hard to say how much liquid they got, but by most accounts it was probably close to 2 inches of liquid...a very high concentration of liquid in the snow crystals.
I think the altitude up here dries some of the moisture out compared to what the eastern Colorado plains gets, especially the ones that come straight south out of Canada. The flakes definitely have a different shape and density depending upon which direction the storm is coming from. We had some big, wet heavy ones with this last storm that hit y'all down there before it came up here.

I think the altitude up here dries some of the moisture out compared to what the eastern Colorado plains gets, especially the ones that come straight south out of Canada. The flakes definitely have a different shape and density depending upon which direction the storm is coming from. We had some big, wet heavy ones with this last storm that hit y'all down there before it came up here.

Yeah...Northern Plains and Great Lakes (outside of snow belts) tend to see a drier snow, more powder, due to the lower moisture content.

This last one definitely had a lot more moisture with it which boosted the water component a lot for many.

Thank goodness for the drippy February we've had. Whatever the amounts it actually adds up to, it's a helluva lot better than if Feb had been dry.

Since NW Oklahoma is finally seeing a lot of moisture with the past several weather systems I assume snow melt will have great impact on water returning toward Canton Lake? I think I heard that around Woodward/Fort Supply there must be enough runoff to work its way toward Canton and eventually toward OKC.

Can anyone verify how much snow melt in NW Oklahoma impacts Canton Lake and the North Canadian River?

With the extremely dry soil out west, and the previous snows falling straight down and not drifting (which is rare out here) but covering the ground, plus with it taking a couple of days to melt I don't think there will be much if any run off as I think it all soaked into the ground. At least that is how it appears to look for now.

This blizzard they are forecasting with such high winds will likely cause drifts that when they melt might produce some run off. It will be aided by the fact that the ground will already moistened from these two previous snows. Again though to agree with the 10/1 -12/1 theory, it won't be significant run off in perspective to a good 5 or 6 inch soaking rain. I am not complaining and we will take any form of moisture at this point but it's unlikely that the snows will raise the Canton Lake level much.

Reports are that we are expecting 6-11 inches of snow here in the Denver area today and they are saying that it is a wetter snow than what we had on Thursday. We have already had a few inches out here this morning in far southeast Aurora.