SE TX/SW LA Winter WX - 2011-2012

[boca]

I never seen the country so void of snow cover we need a El Nino.Its been cool here in Florida but I enjoy reading the Texas Luisiana thread as well as the Texas thread because theirs hope for you guys for snow.

[PTrackerLA]

Looks like the GFS has switched back to the idea of coastal low with widespread overunning precipitation this weekend. Will probably see some frozen precip to the north of here if this solution holds. Currently 0% chance of rain this weekend according to the NWS while the 12z GFS says widespread 2"-3" .

[BigB0882]

For the first time all year I see the letters SN on the weather output from the GFS. It isn't probably hitting the ground but nice to see. May be the only time I see it this winter after seeing it tons the last couple of years, even if it hardly ever panned out.

http://68.226.77.253/text/1DegGFS/GFS_Kbtr.txt

[vbhoutex]

This mornings email from Jeff=cold friday and saturday

Strong cold front will sweep across the region tonight with significantly colder temperatures for the end of the week. Light freezes likely both Friday and Saturday mornings across much of the area.

Upper air pattern is in the process of amplifying this morning with a cold Canadian air mass dropping southward down the plains. Prior to this front reaching SE TX, abundant sunshine and weak WSW low level flow will push afternoon highs today toward 70. Strong front will cross the region tonight with strong cold air advection in place all day Thursday. Highs will struggle to reach 50 degrees at most locations under strong NW winds of 20-30mph.

A very dry air mass with dewpoints into the lower 20’s for most locations will settle over the region Thursday night. Winds may not completely go calm and this may help mitigate the rapid temperature fall that would be normal on a clear and calm night. Even so, with dewpoints so low, feel most areas will fall below freezing and some locations could be below freezing for 4-8 hours. Since all locations have already froze this year and we are not looking at temperatures below 25 for more than 2 hours a freeze or hard freeze warning will not be issued. Most locations look to bottom out in the 26-30 degree range with lows in the 29-33 range within the urban heat cores. Could be colder on Saturday morning, but surface high begins to move eastward allowing a weak onshore component to the wind which will keep the overnight lows up some…still expect most locations to reach freezing again Saturday morning.

Warming trend starts on Saturday as surface high slides east allowing more sustain and uniform onshore flow to develop. Upper level flow becomes increasing SW over the weekend allowing Pacific moisture and upper level disturbance to impinge from the SW. Combination of weak disturbances aloft should help force a middle to lower TX coast trough, but the location and intensity of this trough will determine if rain chances need to be introduced and when. Current indications suggest that any rain chances will likely hold off until Sunday evening or even Monday at the earliest as the next upper level storm system approaches in the time frame. Plenty of time to watch and tweak rain chances and amounts for Sun-Mon as at some point it looks like widespread rains may impact the area again.

Note: The 4.06 inches of rainfall recorded on Monday at Hobby Airport as put this climate site 2.89 inches above normal for January, but the rainfall departure since October 2010 is still over 20.0 inches at this site. 4-6 inches of rainfall over the San Jacinto River watershed led to Lake Conroe rising .8 of a foot from Monday to today, but the lake is still over 6 feet below its normal conservation pool elevation. Extreme to exceptional drought conditions remain across much of the area, even with the recent rainfall events giving a testament of how severe and behind the rainfall deficits have become over the last 13 months. I will get a new update out on the drought by the end of the month.

[southerngale]

My NWS forecast the next few nights - Hard Freeze Warning


Tonight: Partly cloudy, with a low around 23. Northwest wind between 5 and 10 mph.

Friday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 28. Calm wind becoming west around 5 mph.


Brrrr...

[vbhoutex]

What were your lows the last 2 nights Kelly? We got down to 28.4f Friday morning and 30.2f this morning. Respectable for this area, but not damaging. We have had no warnings out of HGX for freezing.

[southerngale]

25° Friday morning and 27° this morning. We were below freezing for many hours both nights. I didn't go outside early yesterday morning, but this morning, my car was covered in ice and there was a thin layer of ice in the water in the ditch. There was so much frost everywhere, it looked like it had snowed. Since we can't seem to get real snow, at least it looked pretty. lol

Like you said on FB, I'm outside the city, so that could make a difference.

[PTrackerLA]

I've been noticing numerous trees already sprouting buds and new leaves which has been ongoing for a week or so. The grasses are markedly turning green as well. I can't ever remember this early of a "spring." I'm starting to doubt we even see another freeze this season. Let's just hope our rainfall pattern stay active, I can't take another summer of drought and intense heat!

[vbhoutex]

Latest from Jeff:

Much of the area is socked in again this morning…although the Houston metro areas and Galveston Bay region are surprisingly fog free at the moment…otherwise visibilities range from ¼ to ¾ of a mile across much of the rest of the region. Sea fog along the coast appears limited to Matagorda Bay where the low level boundary yesterday along US 59 has stalled this morning with sea fog widespread south of this feature.

Showers have already developed this morning over Victoria, Wharton, and Calhoun counties along the stalled low level boundary. Meso scale models show this feature lifting northward today in response to pressures lowering over west TX. Fog and low clouds should lift/burn off by late morning with heating allowing temperatures to rise into the mid to upper 70’s over dewpoints in the upper 60’s. This will support a moderately unstable air mass by early afternoon. Weak disturbance of upper level energy in the upper level flow combined with the surface heating and the low level boundary moving northward will support at least at chance of showers and thunderstorms this afternoon. Best chances appear to be west of I-45 and along and south of US 59. Activity yesterday was much more widespread than models showed, and given a similar setup today, we may see better coverage than expected. Other issue will continue to be very dense sea fog over the bays and coastal waters as high dewpoint air mass continues to slide over cold shelf waters. As the boundary near the coast lifts northward, will likely see the sea fog develop/move back across the Galveston Bay/Bolivar areas by mid morning. Pressure gradient and winds will be on the increase by later today and tonight and this may help disperse some of the sea fog bank, but I have seen sea fog hang tough even with strong winds.

Friday-Saturday midday:

Upper level storm system currently over the SW US will eject into the plains forcing a cold front southward through TX and off the coast Saturday. Air mass ahead of this front will be moist and unstable by Friday afternoon with lift increasing, expect to see scattered showers and thunderstorms developing in the heat of the afternoon. More organized thunderstorms (some strong) will move across the region from NW to SE Friday night and Saturday morning with the cold front. Not overly impressed with the dynamics nor the instability with this event, so while thunderstorms are possible if not likely, severe weather is not expected. SPC Day 2 slight risk outlook (see below) does near our northern row of counties north of Huntsville for Friday afternoon and night, but general reasoning is that any severe threat will be isolated. Rainfall amounts of .5 to 1.0 inch will be possible across much of the region, but with PWS pushing toward 1.5 inches cannot rule out a few isolated higher totals nearing 3-4 inches.

Saturday midday-Monday:

Cold front will usher in a cold and shallow air mass with temperatures falling from the 60’s into the low 50’s during the day on Saturday. Gusty north winds of 15-20mph will make it feel even colder. Shallow front stalls across the NW Gulf in response to position of the upper level jet and another short wave digging into the SW US. Incoming forcing with this feature will help develop a coastal low on the front over the NW Gulf Saturday night/Sunday. Moisture will be forced up and over the surface cold dome resulting in the development of widespread rains from south to north late Saturday night through much of the day on Sunday. Feel guidance high temperatures in the upper 50’s on Sunday is too warm given the expected extensive cloud cover and developing rainfall…would expect some areas to hold steady in the 40’s for much of the day with highs maybe around 50-53 instead of the 55-60 being offered by the models. Best rain chances along with some isolated thunderstorms will be along and south of US 59 where best moisture and lift will be found. Additional rainfall amounts of .5 to 1.5 inches will be possible mainly near the coast on Sunday.

Monday-Wednesday:

Noisy and active sub-tropical flow will remain in place over the region with a frontal boundary stalled over the Gulf of Mexico keeping the area cool into next week (at least compared to what we have become accustom to of late). GFS is showing another disturbance helping to force another coastal low event by the middle of next week with rain chances returning. This event looks to be displaced slightly more southward and offshore…but this is still several days away and I would not be surprised to see things trend wetter as the pattern of an active sub-tropical jet and wet weather seems to be holding over from November and December. A very much positive sign given our still significant drought in place and low lake levels.

SPC Day 2 Severe Weather Outlook:

http://www.spc.noaa.gov/products/outloo ... k_0700.gif

[CajunMama]

I'm seeing the first robins of the year in my backyard. This has to be the earliest i've ever seen them. I always take that as my sign that spring is here.

[somethingfunny]

I'm seeing the first robins of the year in my backyard. This has to be the earliest i've ever seen them. I always take that as my sign that spring is here.

How much farther south can they go?

[CajunMama]

I'm seeing the first robins of the year in my backyard. This has to be the earliest i've ever seen them. I always take that as my sign that spring is here.

How much farther south can they go?

There's still 20 miles between me and Vermilion Bay!

[vbhoutex]

36F at the house this morning in W. Houston. Freezing in the am?? Seems we keep trending colder. We will see. Wxman57 is gonna have to bundle up for a warm bike ride.

[PTrackerLA]

Well I have to admit I was thinking we had already seen our last freeze earlier this week. Now we have a hard freeze warning in effect for tonight with a low of 27 . Hopefully this will kill off some of the mosquito hawks, I feel like we are infested!

[vbhoutex]

Well I have to admit I was thinking we had already seen our last freeze earlier this week. Now we have a hard freeze warning in effect for tonight with a low of 27 . Hopefully this will kill off some of the mosquito hawks, I feel like we are infested!

I swear those suckers chase you in the house!! LOL!! We fried the mosquitoes and mosquito hawks last year. Hopefully they will be frozen by this.

[vbhoutex]

Numerous reports of sleet all over the Houston metro area tonight. Even NWS says we will have some. No accumulations as it is still 42f. At my house it is currently a mixture of very light mist, maybe a flake or two, and occasional sleet. Noting sticking and barely enough to get anything wet. I guess this is our day of winter.

[KatDaddy]

We had light sleet in N Galveston early. Came down at a good clip for several minutes. Bouncing and pinging all around.
Surface temps were in the mid 40s.

[southerngale]

I just got about 15 minutes of sleet. While I unfortunately can't build a sleetman, I'm sure that's the only frozen precipitation I'll see this winter, so it's definitely worth mentioning. It's currently 41°

[southerngale]

zzzz.... half asleep here
I've been getting sleet on and off tonight. I would have preferred snow, but I still like uncommon weather, like sleet, just because.

NWS LCH reported earlier tonight about the sleet in SE TX and that they had gotten many reports (I was one of them) and then they added the chance of sleet to our forecast. Of course the weather geek in me saves the image, as it's the first (and probably last) time frozen precip in any form has been forecast this season.



... back to sleep ...

[CajunMama]

Thanks to insomnia I was able to see our brief sleet occurrence at about 3am or so.