A panhandle hook (also called a pan handle hook or Texas hooker) is a relatively infrequent winter

storm system A storm is any disturbed state of the natural environment or the atmosphere of an astronomical body. It may be marked by significant disruptions to normal conditions such as strong wind, tornadoes, hail, thunder and lightning (a thunderstorm) ...

whose

cyclogenesis Cyclogenesis is the development or strengthening of Cyclonic rotation, cyclonic circulation in the atmosphere (a low-pressure area). Cyclogenesis is an umbrella term for at least three different processes, all of which result in the development of ...

occurs in the South to

southwestern United States The Southwestern United States, also known as the American Southwest or simply the Southwest, is a geographic and cultural list of regions of the United States, region of the United States that includes Arizona and New Mexico, along with adjacen ...

from the late

fall Autumn, also known as fall (especially in US & Canada), is one of the four temperate seasons on Earth. Outside the tropics, autumn marks the transition from summer to winter, in September (Northern Hemisphere) or March ( Southern Hemispher ...

through

winter Winter is the coldest and darkest season of the year in temperate and polar climates. It occurs after autumn and before spring. The tilt of Earth's axis causes seasons; winter occurs when a hemisphere is oriented away from the Sun. Dif ...

and into the early

spring Spring(s) may refer to: Common uses * Spring (season), a season of the year * Spring (device), a mechanical device that stores energy * Spring (hydrology), a natural source of water * Spring (mathematics), a geometric surface in the shape of a he ...

months. They trek to the northeast on a path towards the

Great Lakes region The Great Lakes region of Northern America is a binational Canadian– American region centered on the Great Lakes that includes the U.S. states of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin and the Ca ...

, as the southwesterly

jet stream Jet streams are fast flowing, narrow thermal wind, air currents in the Earth's Atmosphere of Earth, atmosphere. The main jet streams are located near the altitude of the tropopause and are westerly winds, flowing west to east around the gl ...

s are most prevalent, usually affecting the

Midwestern United States The Midwestern United States (also referred to as the Midwest, the Heartland or the American Midwest) is one of the four census regions defined by the United States Census Bureau. It occupies the northern central part of the United States. It ...

and Eastern

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

. Panhandle hooks account for some of the most memorable and deadly

blizzard A blizzard is a severe Winter storm, snowstorm characterized by strong sustained winds and low visibility, lasting for a prolonged period of time—typically at least three or four hours. A ground blizzard is a weather condition where snow th ...

s and

snowstorm A winter storm (also known as snow storm) is an event in which wind coincides with varieties of precipitation that only occur at freezing temperatures, such as snow, Rain and snow mixed, mixed snow and rain, or freezing rain. In Continental cl ...

s in

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

. The name is derived from the region of surface

in the Texas panhandle and Oklahoma panhandle regions. In some winters, there are no panhandle hook storms; in others, there are several.

Formation

A panhandle hook storm has its origins as a strong

shortwave Shortwave radio is radio transmission using radio frequencies in the shortwave bands (SW). There is no official definition of the band range, but it always includes all of the high frequency band (HF), which extends from 3 to 30 MHz (app ...

low pressure system In meteorology, a low-pressure area (LPA), low area or low is a region where the atmospheric pressure is lower than that of surrounding locations. It is the opposite of a high-pressure area. Low-pressure areas are commonly associated with inclem ...

which traverses the base of a long-wave low pressure trough while geographically coincident with the southwestern United States. Such systems ubiquitously develop a surface low-pressure system in the northwestern Texas and western Oklahoma area (as an eddy effect interaction of the

topography Topography is the study of the forms and features of land surfaces. The topography of an area may refer to the landforms and features themselves, or a description or depiction in maps. Topography is a field of geoscience and planetary sci ...

of the

Rocky Mountains The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range and the largest mountain system in North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch in great-circle distance, straight-line distance from the northernmost part of Western Can ...

in relation to the jet stream) with associated

warm front Warm, WARM, or Warmth may refer to: * A somewhat high temperature; heat * Kindness Music Albums * ''Warm'' (Herb Alpert album), 1969 * ''Warm'' (Jeff Tweedy album), 2018 * ''Warm'' (Johnny Mathis album), 1958, and the title song * ''Warm'' ( ...

and

cold front A cold front is the leading edge of a cooler mass of air at ground level that replaces a warmer mass of air and lies within a pronounced surface Trough (meteorology), trough of Low-pressure area, low pressure. It often forms behind an extratropica ...

, with attending snow to the northwest of the low and severe

thunderstorm A thunderstorm, also known as an electrical storm or a lightning storm, is a storm characterized by the presence of lightning and its acoustics, acoustic effect on the Earth's atmosphere, known as thunder. Relatively weak thunderstorm ...

s to the southeast -- the "hook" refers to the left-ward east to northeast jog in the track of the surface low as it is plotted on a weather analysis chart. If the associated jet stream is stronger than normal and there is colder than normal air in place in central

to provide a greater than normal temperature contrast with

Gulf of Mexico The Gulf of Mexico () is an oceanic basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, mostly surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north, and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States; on the southw ...

moisture drawn northward by the developing panhandle low, surface cyclogenesis can be particularly energetic and cause a great swath of heavy snow to develop and blanket a large portion of the American

Great Plains The Great Plains is a broad expanse of plain, flatland in North America. The region stretches east of the Rocky Mountains, much of it covered in prairie, steppe, and grassland. They are the western part of the Interior Plains, which include th ...

and upper-midwestern states in conjunction with very strong winds, the combination of which exceeds blizzard criteria. Over the

Great Lakes The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes spanning the Canada–United States border. The five lakes are Lake Superior, Superior, Lake Michigan, Michigan, Lake Huron, H ...

, the interaction of these storms with the lakes can amplify windspeeds causing extreme heavy sometimes localized snowfall,

thundersnow Thundersnow, also known as a winter thunderstorm or a thundersnow storm, is a thunderstorm in which snow falls as the primary precipitation instead of rain. It is considered a rare phenomenon. It typically falls in regions of strong upward moti ...

and often shoreline erosion. Initially pleasant weather ahead of the northeast-bound storm can lull the unwary into dressing lightly and then being surprised by heavy snow accompanied by howling easterly and northerly winds as the low traverses south to east of their location.

Historic panhandle hooks

Famous storms that were panhandle hooks are the Armistice Day Blizzard of November 11, 1940, and the storm which sank the '' Edmund Fitzgerald'' on November 10, 1975.

References

External links

* {{Cyclones Extratropical cyclones

Formation

Historic panhandle hooks

See also

References

External links