Editing Panhandle hook

[[Image:Panhandle hook.png|right|thumb|200px|A common track of a Panhandle Hook winter storm as it curves from Texas, northeastward towards the Great Lakes region.]]  A '''panhandle hook''' (also called a '''pan handle hook'''<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.weather.gov/jetstream/glossary_p |title=Jet Stream - Weather Glossary: P's |website=National Weather Service |access-date=5 February 2018}}</ref> or '''Texas hooker'''<ref name=Slate>{{cite web |url=http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/02/19/texas_hooker_storm_to_bring_midwest_blizzard_tornadoes_at_the_same_time.html |title="Texas Hooker" to Bring Midwest Blizzard, Tornadoes at the Same Time |last=Holthaus |first=Eric |date=19 February 2014 |website=Slate |access-date=5 February 2018}}</ref>) is a relatively infrequent winter [[Low pressure area|storm system]] whose [[cyclogenesis]] occurs in the South to [[southwestern United States]] from the late [[autumn|fall]] through [[winter]] and into the early [[Spring (season)|spring]] months. They trek to the northeast on a path towards the [[Great Lakes region (North America)|Great Lakes region]], as the southwesterly [[jet stream]]s are most prevalent, usually affecting the [[Midwestern United States]] and Eastern [[Canada]].  Panhandle hooks account for some of the most memorable and deadly [[blizzard]]s and  [[snowstorm]]s in [[North America]].<ref name=Slate></ref> The name is derived from the region of surface [[cyclogenesis]] in the [[Texas panhandle]] and [[Oklahoma panhandle]] regions. In some winters, there are no panhandle hook storms; in others, there are several.

==Formation==
[[File:Colorado_low_circulation.png|thumb|200px|Typical Southwest circulation, east of the Rockies, of a [[Colorado low]]. For a Panhandle hook, the flow should be slightly further east.]]
A panhandle hook storm has its origins as a strong [[Shortwave (meteorology)|shortwave]] [[low pressure system]] 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]] of the [[Rocky Mountains]] in relation to the jet stream) with associated [[warm front]] and [[cold front]], with attending snow to the northwest of the low and severe [[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 [[Canada]] to provide a greater than normal temperature contrast with [[Gulf of Mexico]] 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]] and upper-midwestern states in conjunction with very strong winds, the combination of which exceeds blizzard criteria. Over the [[Great Lakes]],  the interaction of these storms with the lakes can amplify windspeeds causing extreme heavy sometimes localized snowfall, [[thundersnow]] 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 ''[[SS Edmund Fitzgerald|Edmund Fitzgerald]]'' on November 10, 1975.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.islandnet.com/~see/weather/events/fitzgeraldstorm.htm |title=The Edmund Fitzgerald Storm |last=Heidorn |first=Keith |date=1 November 2010 |publisher=The Weather Doctor |access-date=5 February 2018}}</ref>

==See also==
* [[Alberta clipper]]
* [[Colorado low]]
* [[Gulf low]]
* [[Nor'easter]]
* [[Salient (geography)]], official name for panhandle

==References==
{{reflist}}

== External links ==
* {{commonscat-inline}}

{{Cyclones}}

[[Category:Extratropical cyclones]]