STORM2K

I thought I would go ahead and start the official Texas Spring 2024 Thread now. I have some severe weather concerns for the state of Texas and the Southern Plains this Spring but I will reserve my thoughts for later on after I review some more data. Meanwhile, unlike the last few years, here's hoping for a wet Spring with above rainfall averages for all.

I don't like what Spring is going to start as


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I was just coming back to this thread to provide some of my early thoughts regarding our weather pattern that may evolve as Meteorological Spring rolls around.

Off the top of my head, many portions of Texas, especially the Panhandle, this winter has experienced more precipitation as compared to the last several years during the winter months. This leads me to believe that the dry line may not mix as far as east during severe weather setups as compared to the past few years.

So with the Northern Hemisphere atmosphere still responding to our most recent El Niño, I believe the Southern Jet Stream should remain fairly robust through at least March and April, possibly May as well. Be mindful that it will still take several months before the atmosphere becomes fully coupled with a Neutral, and eventually a dreaded forthcoming La Niña event, later on this year. So meanwhile, we should still see some regionally synoptic setups that will periodically favor severe weather episodes, one or two of which may be significant in magnitude.

One factor of concern, as emphasized throughout the Winter Thread, is the stubborn -PDO which remains to be seen what, if any, influence it may have on our Northern Hemisphere weather pattern throughout the Spring months.

Of course, other teleconnections will modulate the North American weather pattern as Spring progresses so confidence in pinpointing when and where these events take place will be low until 3 to 5 days out. With that said, I believe with an above average active southern jet stream coupled with above Gulf of Mexico SST anomalies, there will mostly likely be some stretches where favorable dynamics couple with favorable thermodynamics producing regional severe weather events including one or two significant tornado episodes.

Long range ensembles, in conjunction with the latest long range GFS Op runs, suggests significant blocking may set up over the NE US/SE Canada/Western Atlantic, while a persistent trough setups over the Western US which may lead to some early March severe weather episodes over portions of TX and OK, possibly dry line action in Western Texas and Western Oklahoma, assuming sufficient moisture can advect into the region.

Regardless of severe weather prospects, I really hope the state can benefit greatly from a wetter weather pattern going into the summer months, before you know what re-establishes itself later this year going into 2025.

Iceresistance wrote:I don't like what Spring is going to start as

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The region will definitely need to remain vigilant regarding the weather pattern during this Spring because there will be times where shear and instability overlap. Also, we all must be mindful during those stretches where the jet stream flow is fast, because models may not provide us much lead time before a severe weather episode materializes.

Thanks for starting the thread, 869. And thanks for the early analysis. Seems logical to me based on what we’re seeing now.

This forecast would be awesome if there was appreciable rain in it.

Looks like a dry start to "pre-spring" so far...winter seems to be pretty much over at least for south central TX.

Any rain in the cards for early to mid March?

Its not looking good for rain in march, thinking below average precipitation for the month is looking more likely now

Edwards Limestone wrote:Looks like a dry start to "pre-spring" so far...winter seems to be pretty much over at least for south central TX.

Any rain in the cards for early to mid March?

If long-term ensemble runs are to be trusted, higher the normal 500mb Height Anomalies over SE Canada and lower heights over the Western US still appear to be on the table. But the Western US height anomalies appear to be on the weaker side, so it remains to be seen how this will translate to the Southern Plains in the long run. We really need those long-term higher-height anomalies to set up just to the east of Florida and the SW Atlantic.

I remember the spring after winter El Nino can be quite wet, like in 1973, 1983, 1998, 2007, and 2016.

Time to bury that nasty "Texas Winter 2023-2024" thread and move on to a happier-sounding thread - Spring (with summer to follow). Loved the 80 deg temps yesterday. First ride in quite a while where I didn't feel cold.

These 80-degree temps during the day with 50s-60s at night is all right.

I'd feel better about it if we had more water in the bank. Travis is 36 feet below average, 50 feet below full.

We got a lot of rain over the Winter here, but hardly anything in LCRA watershed, where it counts.

https://hydromet.lcra.org/riverreport/

weatherdude1108 wrote:These 80-degree temps during the day with 50s-60s at night is all right.

I'd feel better about it if we had more water in the bank. Travis is 36 feet below average, 50 feet below full.

We got a lot of rain over the Winter here, but hardly anything in LCRA watershed, where it counts.

https://hydromet.lcra.org/riverreport/

January was decent, but Feb has been on the dry side at Camp Mabry, 1 inch vs 1.5 normal. The airport got a little more, 2 inches vs 1.5 normal. Was recently hiking at Turkey Creek near Emma Long Park. There is a lot of fuel, aka dead wood, through that trail. A control burn would be nice, but I don't think that's going to happen so close to neighborhoods. Another long, hot and dry summer could bring a dreaded wildfire to the Austin area. We need rain in the LCRA watershed and locally.

A very warm borderline Hot day across Texas with a boat load of 90's and possible a 100 or 2 across the the far Southwest.

It's already 90*F at DFW as of 1pm, with several more hours of heating to go.

Big contrast coming Wed-Thu, with DFW highs of 54 and 52.

Pretty good model support for a potential plains severe weather event for Sun 3/3. Wouldn't be surprised to see a Day 6 slight on the next SPC outlook tonight. Could be some moisture issues and most of the time these big troughs shown at this range tend to downtrend but it's definitely something to watch.

The official high today was 94*F at DFW, shattering the previous record of 90*F.

It’s funny how people keep piling into Texas like the state is still going to be inhabitable a generation or two from now, with this earlier and earlier heat and shrinking rainfall totals. 94 degrees in February, absolutely disgusting.