A very strong cold front dove through the Oklahoma Panhandle during the day of the 21st. The cold airmass behind the front was fairly shallow with the lowest five to six thousand feet reaching temperatures below freezing.
Every event with a place to put it; 3 filed by county or forecast zone are drawn at its center, in a lighter ring. Tap one for its entry below.
Deaths and injuries are direct and indirect together, as the offices filed them. Damage is property and crops in the dollars of the year, not adjusted for inflation, and only where an office estimated it.
The episode as NWS AMA wrote it up.
A very strong cold front dove through the Oklahoma Panhandle during the day of the 21st. The cold airmass behind the front was fairly shallow with the lowest five to six thousand feet reaching temperatures below freezing. Above this cold near surface layer was a five to six thousand foot deep above freezing warm layer. This warm noise and a relative lack of moisture in the snow growth region of the atmosphere kept the precipitation type during the late night hours of the 21st mainly freezing drizzle. As the hours progressed into the early morning hours of the 22nd, the Dodge City, Kansas upper air sounding showed the snow growth region was saturating. This allowed for the precipitation type to transition to a freezing drizzle, sleet, and snow grain mixture. Precipitation transitioned to more of a sleet/snow mixture across the Oklahoma Panhandle through the 22nd and into the morning hours of the 23rd due to the warm layer aloft cooling to near freezing as seen from the Dodge City, Kansas upper air sounding.
Each county of the Oklahoma Panhandle was impacted by this wintry mixture of precipitation. Freezing drizzle was reported in Guymon (Texas County) by school officials. They stated that between Hooker (Texas County) and the Beaver County line was where freezing drizzle transitioned to snow. By 8:00 AM CST on the 22nd, the Beaver County Emergency Manager reported that there was less than an inch of snow on the ground, and that roadways remained in good condition. Once scattered wintry precipitation ended, Cimarron County had received an estimated one inch of snow as snow bands moved from Dallam County into the western Oklahoma Panhandle.
The local office's own words before the first event, as it sent them, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service text.
NWS Amarillo, TX wrote its last area forecast discussion before the first event at Nov 21, 9:46 PM CST, 1 hour 14 minutes earlier.
<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
<title>Service Notice</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="index.css">
</head>
<body>
<main class="wrap">
<section class="card" role="status" aria-live="polite">
<div class="status" id="status">Temporary Notice</div>
<h1 id="headline">This service is currently unavailable.</h1>
<p id="message1">
The site you requested is temporarily down for maintenance or an unexpected outage.
</p>
<p id="message2">
Please try again in a few minutes.
</p>
<p class="small" id="detail">
If you are an administrator, restore upstream service and remove the redirect/fallback rule when normal operations resume.
</p>
</section>
</main>
<script src="index.js"></script>
</body>
</html>The national radar mosaic for the moment the first event began.
3 winter weather. Local standard time, as filed.
Report of less than one inch of snow in Beaver. Freezing drizzle preceded the snow.
Media reported 1 inch of snow in Boise City and Kenton.
School offiicials reported snow covering the ground near Guymon and freezing drizzle from Hooker to the Texas/Beaver County line.
After NWS Directive 10-1605, the rules offices file Storm Data by.
Every storm in Oklahoma in 2013Every state in 2013This day in weather historyWarnings in Oklahoma, November 2013
NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database, compiled from the National Weather Service’s monthly Storm Data. Complete through 2026-06; NCEI adds each month about 75 days after it ends and revises past years a few times a year. Rebuilt 2026-09-30. Each event’s entry at NCEI: 483912, 483913, 483923.