Panhandle hook

A panhandle hook (also called a pan handle hook) is a relatively infrequent winter storm system whose cyclogenesis occurs in the South to southwestern United States from the late fall through winter and into the early spring months. They trek to the northeast on a path towards the Great Lakes region, as the southwesterly jet streams are most prevalent, usually affecting the Midwestern United States and Eastern Canada. Panhandle hooks account for some of the most memorable and deadly blizzards and snowstorms in North America, as well as tornado outbreaks in the Midwest on record. 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.

A panhandle hook storm has its origins as a strong 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 thunderstorms 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.

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