Texas Spring 2017

[Ralph's Weather]

Sunday got down to 33 here and it is going to be around there this morning. Can we sneak in a freeze?

[Yukon Cornelius]

30 this morning with a decently heavy frost. Not bad for a spring morning!

[TheProfessor]

My parents and little brother will be in town March 29-April 1(first ever trip to Texas). You can guarantee there will be some sort of severe weather then.

I'm also expecting a Severe outbreak somewhere in the U.S on the 24th. OSU will be hosting our Severe weather Symposium and one of out guest speakers will be Dr. Greg Forbes and it would make perfect sense in my world if there was an outbreak when he nor any of us could track it lol.

[Texas Snowman]

30 this morning with a decently heavy frost. Not bad for a spring morning!

33 here this morning

[CaptinCrunch]

36 at the Casa this morning, frosty rooftops and windshields, YEA Winter is returning....

[JDawg512]

Next week is looking unsettled, athough low confidence. Hopefully we can get some decent rainfall.

[bubba hotep]

Hopefully, we can pull some wet weather in March because the Euro weeklies from today look a lot like March following strong west based QBO January:



And by the way, the corresponding precipitation anomaly map isn't very pretty either.

[Brent]

GFS looks pretty boring through day 12 or so... other than a little rain the next few days pretty bland. The mid week storm mostly gets going southeast of DFW(maybe South Texas and the coast might do well). At least there's no sign of record heat

Has hints of a big rain event out towards 300 hours but we'll see how that goes.

[srainhoutx]

After a couple of days of cooler and drier weather, changes are brewing in the Weekend/Early Week timeframe. A warm front and a Coastal Low/trough is expected to develop long the Lower and Middle Texas Coast bringing a chance for heavy rainfall with the possiblility of Flash Flooding, High Winds mainly offshore and potentially some Coastal Flooding as a surface low organizes Saturday night near the Lower Texas Coast and moves generally ENE on Sunday.

[Yukon Cornelius]

Almost pulled off another freeze this morning. It made it down to 33 with a light frost up here. By looking at the long range forecast, yesterdays freeze appears to possibly be the last one we'll see until next fall/winter.

[Ralph's Weather]

Another frosty morning with a low of 34.

[Ntxw]

Pattern in the tropics resemble la nina. I think closer to the coast your odds of rain are better, further away is more likely to underperform at least through 2 weeks. It's not that the systems are lacking, the tropical connection to the Pacific isn't there.

[bubba hotep]

Pattern in the tropics resemble la nina. I think closer to the coast your odds of rain are better, further away is more likely to underperform at least through 2 weeks. It's not that the systems are lacking, the tropical connection to the Pacific isn't there.

It is starting to look like that may be a temporary push back by the atmosphere. More and more signs the that base state will start to shift towards +ENSO over the next couple of weeks in response to changing SSTs. My biggest fear is that the lag drags on longer than expected and it robs Texas of part of the wet spring window.

[Ntxw]

I don't see yet any sig westerly wind bursts in the tropical Pacific for a more sustained Nino pattern, if there is one more likely to be CCKW or MJO progression. Earliest sign I see of WWBs for a true coupling to a stable Nino pattern is early April and will then take time to reflect.

[JDawg512]

I'm not as much worried about March as I am for May when it comes to spring rains. We don't need to have repeats of the last 2 years but having at least average to a bit above average for both May and June would be ideal. Time will tell how mid to late Spring plays out.

[Ntxw]

I'm not as much worried about March as I am for May when it comes to spring rains. We don't need to have repeats of the last 2 years but having at least average to a bit above average for both May and June would be ideal. Time will tell how mid to late Spring plays out.

A couple of things to point out looking forward. We are coming out of a weak La Nina with a +PDO. 2014 and 2015 was coming out of an already weak El Nino into a Super El Nino so the wet pattern started winter of 2014 and intensified into 2015. I don't think we should be looking to this kind of scenario as it was a perfect series of events to bring multiple widespread rains seemingly every week. DFW had flood watches basically much of that spring. Last year was coming out of a Super El NIno thus the already wet winter pattern lingered into spring but then as the year went on, got less and less wet towards the fall as the event faded.

This year I don't expect a very wet Spring. I do think severe weather will be increase but it is hit or miss and more isolated vs the widespread rains we have been accustomed to the past couple of springs. We'll likely end up near normal or slightly below normal. Saving grace from an all out drought like in 2011 and 2012 is that the PDO is firmly within a positive regime. Should a Nino kick in, the earliest that the indicators can bring forth one given we are now in March is May perhaps early summer. Then effects likely won't play an important role until fall or winter.

[bubba hotep]

Let the westward trend begin! lol

 https://twitter.com/RyanMaue/status/837744157473005569

[Ntxw]

Let the westward trend begin! lol

Last stand of the Nina?

[Ntxw]

Anomalous early spring -EPO?

 https://twitter.com/MJVentrice/status/837779041113485314




On a side note, I am making this comment because it is relevant to our hobby here on this forum. The proposed budget cuts (17%) to NOAA especially hitting the satellite and research is going to hurt. Satellites have vastly improved guidance to real time initialization and is vital to forecasting. This is not a good thing...I do not want to politicize this topic, data is just so important to forecasting and readily available information. The GFS and suites is far enough behind (at least a decade) to the Euro bunch, it needs more power, better initialization, and better algorithms all requiring the help of such tools.

[Brent]

The 0z GFS actually has a freeze at DFW at 360 hours(March 19th)....

now wouldn't that be something?

Warmest highs are in the low 80s next weekend and beyond that it's much cooler, no sign of any record heat or even temperatures experienced during the winter heat waves.

Not Texas... but the Euro has a huge blizzard from the DC suburbs up the coast next weekend with 30" around New York City.