The week started out with the threat of some cold and snowy weather. And on Tuesday it arrived out here in the panhandle. The week began with beautiful weather in Guymon. Here's a picture of the Caravan I was flying early in the week parked at the Guymon airport along with a Citation and a C402. My Caravan looks huge!
The nice weather didn't last long. It was a major cold blast that came through. Guymon went from highs in the 50's to highs in the lower teens. Brrr.
There was a chance of snow on my route and most of that happened in the Tulsa area. In fact, on Wednesday night I spent most of the flight from Guymon to Enid in the clouds but not taking on much ice. After I left Enid, the ice situation changed. I began to pick up a continuous amount of light rime ice. There was a lot of snow at 7,000 ft but not much of it sticking. About 20 miles outside of Tulsa I was told by Kansas City Center that Tulsa International was going to be closed for at least 30 minutes for snow removal and I had a couple of options, hold in the clouds and ice or go somewhere else. After a call to the dispatcher, it was decided that I would hold. It was challenging, holding and removing the ice for the next 40 minutes. Finally, the snow was removed from the runway and I was cleared for the ILS approach. The pictures below are from Tulsa after I landed.
As you can see, there was some snow on the ground. Probably a couple of inches. The snow was extremely dry so it didn't stick to much. After a small wait in Tulsa for de-icing it was on to Dallas to pick up more freight. Didn't actually make it to Dallas that night, the airport was shut down due to the bad weather happening down there. After a return to Tulsa and a short wait it was back in the air headed torwards Oklahoma City to pick up the normal route back to Woodward and Guymon. The storm by 4 AM had passed the Tulsa area and it was clear along the rest of my route.
