Texas Spring 2017

[Rgv20]

Forecast high toady is 102F and tomorrow the front cool us to 94F.....Friday and Saturday another 100+ days

[aggiecutter]

TORNADO WATCH OUTLINE UPDATE FOR WT 162
NWS STORM PREDICTION CENTER NORMAN OK
1005 AM CDT WED APR 26 2017

TORNADO WATCH 162 IS IN EFFECT UNTIL 500 PM CDT FOR THE
FOLLOWING LOCATIONS

TXC037-063-067-183-203-315-343-365-401-423-449-459-499-262200-
/O.NEW.KWNS.TO.A.0162.170426T1505Z-170426T2200Z/

TX
. TEXAS COUNTIES INCLUDED ARE

BOWIE CAMP CASS
GREGG HARRISON MARION
MORRIS PANOLA RUSK
SMITH TITUS UPSHUR
WOOD

[Tireman4]

Wednesday morning briefing from Jeff:

A strong storm system will approach SE TX this weekend.

Cold front currently moving into N TX will progress southward today and across SE TX this afternoon. Ahead of the boundary SW flow at the surface will push temperatures well into the 80’s and possibly near 90 before the front arrives. Area is strongly capped this morning and even with the tail end of a short wave and lift along the front, do not think the cap will be overcome for most of the area. Capping will be weakest from roughly College Station to Chambers County and areas NE of that line may see an isolated strong thunderstorms with the front this afternoon.

Much cooler and drier on Thursday, but this will be short lived as the next system rapidly approaches from the west. Low level southerly flow begins in earnest late Thursday and increases on Friday helping to transport and tropical air mass northward into east TX. Approaching strong short wave will deepen into a closed upper level low over the SW US early Saturday and barrel into TX late Saturday into Sunday. Expect strong moisture advection on Saturday to promote scattered showers and even a few thunderstorms be the afternoon hours.

Main event will arrive into the region Saturday night into midday Sunday with strong forcing aloft helping to erode capping allowing deep convection to develop. Instability and shear values look favorable for strong to severe thunderstorms and PWS rise to near 2.0 inches by Saturday evening which will support a heavy rainfall threat. SPC has areas just to our north outlooked for severe weather this weekend and will need to watch trends to see if this needs to be expanded southward which appears possible depending on mid level capping.

As for rainfall widespread 1-2 inches will be possible this weekend with the greatest chances along and NE of a line from Bastrop to Sugar Land to Galveston. Could certainly see some isolated higher totals with PWS so high, but the system currently looks progress enough to keep things manageable over the region.

[Tireman4]

695
FXUS64 KHGX 261736
AFDHGX

Area Forecast Discussion
National Weather Service Houston/Galveston TX
1236 PM CDT Wed Apr 26 2017

.AVIATION...
Light SHRAs with the pre-frontal trof have moved off the coast at
present...and keeping an eye to our N/NE with the development at/
along the cold front itself. Still banking on the strong cap over
the region to keep any additional precipitation out with FROPA it-
self and main change with the 18Z TAFS was to tweak the timing of
the front. Otherwise, quite a bit of haze lingering across the FA
in the wake of the pre-frontal trof with some spots of MVFR CIGS.
All of this should clear out behind the front with VFR conditions
areawide this evening/overnight/most of tomorrow. 41

&&

.PREV DISCUSSION... /ISSUED 1027 AM CDT Wed Apr 26 2017/

UPDATE...
The previous forecast appears to be on track. We currently have a
few warm air advection showers pushing through parts of SE Texas
this morning. 12Z soundings from CRP and LCH showed a very strong
cap in place. I have some doubts as to how much of the cap will
really be able to erode by this afternoon when the approaching
front pushes into our area. The best chance for breaking the cap
and therefore getting thunderstorms will be generally to the
northeast, or across the Piney Woods region. If we are able to
break through the cap, steep mid level lapse rates of around
7.5-8.0 and forecast CAPE over 3000 will give any thunderstorms
that do develop the potential to pack some damaging winds and
large hail. The tornado threat is also nonzero and something to
monitor, but for now the greatest threats appear to be damaging
winds and hail. 11

&&

.PRELIMINARY POINT TEMPS/POPS...
College Station (CLL) 86 51 84 67 90 / 20 0 0 10 10
Houston (IAH) 89 56 84 69 90 / 20 10 0 10 10
Galveston (GLS) 84 64 78 74 82 / 20 10 0 10 10

&&

.HGX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES...
TX...NONE.
GM...SMALL CRAFT SHOULD EXERCISE CAUTION until 4 PM CDT this
afternoon for the following zones: Coastal waters from
Freeport to the Matagorda Ship Channel out 20 NM...Coastal
waters from High Island to Freeport out 20 NM...Galveston
Bay...Matagorda Bay.

Small Craft Advisory until 4 PM CDT this afternoon for the
following zones: Waters from Freeport to the Matagorda Ship
Channel from 20 to 60 NM...Waters from High Island to
Freeport from 20 to 60 NM.

&&

$$

[Brent]

Oh my god it feels like winter out the wind is almost biting

Meanwhile it's 100 degrees in Brownsville

[Ntxw]

50s here and brisk. What is this? October?! Heck its cooler now in late April than it was on Christmas we could get another dose of this late weekend

[Brent]

This weather is so bipolar lol its a shock to the system after the warmth of seemingly ever

[JDawg512]

Today really shows that while we may all be in the same state, the weather varies significantly to the point that I'm having to double check the above posts to make sure I'm in the right thread. Completely different worlds lol. It's currently 90 degrees here in Austin with very low humidity and persistent gusty winds.

My arch enemy the Dry Miser, along with our friend the Heat Miser, is in full control over our weather this afternoon. I'll have to combat this horrible dryness with some liquid this evening.

[Brent]

Reportedly 104 degrees in Brownsville

and it could snow in the Panhandle this weekend.

[Yukon Cornelius]

52 here, wind chill 46. Feels awesome! Ive been in a Gator all day and wish I would have brought a jacket or hoodie.

[Cpv17]

Currently 91 degrees here in Wharton with a forecast low of 53 tonight. Kind of reminds me of desert weather.

[bubba hotep]

Where was this constant stream of cold fronts in Jan & Feb?!?!

[1900hurricane]

It could be worse. We could be having just about no rain and entering a megadrought.

[drewser]

I'm just a humble lurker and have no idea what most of this means, but Steve McCauley's mention of "hail the size of canned hams" successfully grabbed my attention.

Here is the latest calculation for the amount of energy that will be available to any thunderstorm that manages to punch through the cap late Friday afternoon and evening. For the first time since I can recall, the amount of energy that is predicted to be in place prior to thunderstorm initiation has exceeded the maximum scale of 6,000 units. Maximum energy on this map is 6,194 units. This would support softball, grapefruit and yes, even hail the size of canned hams along with very damaging straightline winds and the threat of significant tornado development.

(He mistakenly put the "DFW" label one county too far to the west)

[Shoshana]

I was coming here to see if anyone had reposted Steve's canned ham hail post....

[bubba hotep]

00z Euro continued the trend towards the EPS and now both show around 2" of rain at DFW for this weekend. The NE burbs get 3"+ on the EPS.

[Ntxw]

Sunday could be in the 50s, April 30th has a freak low max of 52 but the days around it are around 60. New Mexico will get pummeled with snow, some bleeding over to the panhandle.

Euro and GFS are advertising another anomalous cool air mass mid to late next week.

[bubba hotep]

The NAMs would be a train wreck for the DFW area, basically nothing from this next system in the way of rain.

[wxman57]

Looks like the riders in the MS 150 (Houston to Austin) may face a line of heavy to severe storms for the 3rd year in a row. They're talking about cancelling Sunday, though the storms will likely hit La Grange late Saturday night. They don't want to expose over 12,000 people to severe weather with most of them in tents.

On another note, if you haven't visited the College of DuPage GOES-16 website lately then take a look. They've really streamlined the interface, even allowing you to save an animated GIF or an HTML5 animation.

http://weather.cod.edu/satrad/exper/

Check out the loop I made from yesterday's visible imagery. I'll just post a link to it as it's 60+ MB in size. Note the wave clouds in the D-FW area and the impulse that moves across south Louisiana shortly after.

http://wxman57.com/G16.gif

[1900hurricane]

The NAMs would be a train wreck for the DFW area, basically nothing from this next system in the way of rain.

I wouldn't worry about it yet. The BMJ convective scheme used by the NAM often struggles to properly convect in dry mid-level environments.

From the MetEd module:

Models: The BMJ scheme is used in the operational NCEP NAM Model and some members in the NCEP Short Range Ensemble Forecast system.

Convective Process

Trigger: Three conditions are required to trigger convection:

At least some CAPE
Convective cloud depth exceeding a threshold value
Moist soundings to activate