Texas Winter 2017-2018

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orangeblood
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Re: Texas Winter 2017-2018

#2041 Postby orangeblood » Sat Dec 16, 2017 9:17 am

Big differences have evolved b/w the American and Europen models...GEFS is insistent that the closed ULL forms in the southwest, European is now showing no such thing, moving the energy out as an open wave. For what it's worth, GEFS has been consistent for days now while Euro keeps flip flopping - IMO, the Euro's inconsistency appears to be with its handling of the PNA/Arctic Air overwhelming the pattern

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Last edited by orangeblood on Sat Dec 16, 2017 9:36 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Texas Winter 2017-2018

#2042 Postby Tireman4 » Sat Dec 16, 2017 9:18 am

HGX too

000
FXUS64 KHGX 161037
AFDHGX

Area Forecast Discussion
National Weather Service Houston/Galveston TX
437 AM CST Sat Dec 16 2017


The much talked about cold airmass is still penciled in to arrive
Thursday night and Friday. Overrunning precipitation is looking
like a decent possibility, but it`s still too early to pin down
temps, precip type, timing with any degree of confidence this far
out. 47
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Re: Texas Winter 2017-2018

#2043 Postby gpsnowman » Sat Dec 16, 2017 9:45 am

A day off to pay attention to the wonderful world of weather. Then it is Miller Time later and watch Saturday NFL action. Hope some snow trends happen today.
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Re: Texas Winter 2017-2018

#2044 Postby cctxhurricanewatcher » Sat Dec 16, 2017 9:47 am

NWS Corpus has a good take overnight.





000
FXUS64 KCRP 161210
AFDCRP

Area Forecast Discussion
National Weather Service Corpus Christi TX
610 AM CST Sat Dec 16 2017

.DISCUSSION...




LONG TERM (Sunday night through Friday)...

Pattern remains active and there continues to be a hint of some
arctic air coming pretty far South toward the end of the forecast,
which if the moisture hangs around and there is enough forcing could
bring (if the airmass is dense enough) at least a brief bit of
winter weather (again) to the region (twice in less than a month
would be extremely unusual, especially during La Nina). However,
that is a ways out and normally the coldest of the models (Canadian)
is not showing this yet. However, at the very least it looks like
some cold air will get down here on Friday.

Before that, it still looks like the rain chances will continue over
the area especially Monday night and Tuesday as another upper trough
approaches the area. There will still be a chance for precipitation
Sunday night and Monday, mainly over the eastern portions of South
Texas (and gulf waters) as good moisture advection continues and
surface forcing is present. The upper trough moving toward the area
Monday night and Tuesday will allow a surface low and warm front to
develop Monday night, providing a focus for some convection.
Although most of the rain will be showers, there will be enough of
instability to provide for at least a slight chance for thunder,
with the better chance Tuesday over the eastern areas as daytime
heating erodes the cap along with the upper level forcing. The upper
trough moves east Tuesday night (taking the surface low with it) and
a brief interlude of dry weather comes in on Wednesday and continues
into Thursday. However, the moisture comes back Thursday night as a
frontal boundary approaches the area. The ECMWF and GFS show a
pretty strong arctic airmass with the boundary although the upper
fetch is not the arctic express far to the south one would want to
see to feel more confident in this to occur. However, the fetch is
into Oklahoma and if the airmass is dense enough it could get rather
cold even in our area. For now, did not go as cold as the raw GFS
and ECMWF (or their bias-corrected counterparts), but did go colder
than the Superblend as per other offices. The upper trough remaining
to the west will provide for at least a small chance for rain Friday
through Saturday night, although by late Saturday the ECMWF and GFS
show significant differences in the 1000-500 mb moisture fields
which, given where the colder air is supposed to reside in the
surface and boundary layer, could dictate whether any wintry
precipitation will be possible. The long and the short of it is to
stay tuned
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Re: Texas Winter 2017-2018

#2045 Postby gboudx » Sat Dec 16, 2017 9:49 am

Update from jeff:

Late Week-Next Weekend:

Let’s start with forecast confidence is not high from Thursday into next weekend.

Upper air pattern over the US will undergo amplification with deep layer ridging building along the US west coast deep into NW Canada and even the arctic circle. This will dislodge a cold arctic air mass and send it southward into the US by the middle of next week. Arctic boundary will arrive in TX on Thursday and likely cross SE TX early Friday. High temperatures will certainly be ahead of this boundary with rapidly falling temperatures Friday into the 40’s and eventually the upper 30’s (NW areas). The confidence in this arctic front making it off the coast sometime on Friday is fairly high along with a colder air mass moving into the region.

Next question then becomes how cold does the surface layer become. Arctic air masses tend to be very shallow in nature (sometimes only a feet thousand feet thick) with much warmer air above the surface cold dome. If moisture were to be in place for next weekend, the shallow nature of the cold air does NOT support snow or sleet. A shallow cold layer near the surface would tend to support freezing rain if and only if the surface temperature is at or below freezing…33 means a very cold rain and 31 would mean freezing rain. At this time the incoming air mass does not appear, at least initially, to be cold enough at the surface to result in freezing rain over much of SE TX. Freezing line may end up over portions of the I-35 corridor by Friday evening (22nd) and a bit southward by the morning of the 23rd. There is very little room for wet bulb cooling of the air mass since model cross sections show a fairly saturated air column over much of the state and surface temperatures and dewpoints are fairly close.

While the surface temperatures are one issue, the other issue is the handling of an upper level low which may dig into the SW US and how much moisture it will bring up and over the surface cold dome. While early, there is some degree of confidence that this upper level feature will form over the SW US by late week and provide a good amount of moisture over the state.

As with any winter weather event in TX, confidence is low as many times such events hinge on 1-2 degree differences in the temperatures which 5-6 days out is impossible to forecast. Run to run model variability continues to be poor which does not lend much confidence in any particular solution actually happening

Key Messages:

1) Significantly colder air mass will likely arrive next Friday and last through the holiday weekend
2) It is too early to determine how cold the air mass will be or if any freezing precipitation will occur over any portions of SE TX
3) Residents traveling to central and N TX late next week/weekend should monitor forecasts closely
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Re: Texas Winter 2017-2018

#2046 Postby spencer817 » Sat Dec 16, 2017 10:09 am

Is anyone else thinking the GFS is too warm for DFW?
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Re: Texas Winter 2017-2018

#2047 Postby missygirl810 » Sat Dec 16, 2017 10:15 am

Ralph's Weather wrote:
missygirl810 wrote:Ok, dumb question, but going to ask anyway, is Hunt Co considered North TX or Northeast Tx, or Central TX? I have heard all three for my area lol

I would say Hunt Co would be N TX but very near the line with NE TX. For me, N TX is basically Abilene (maybe down to Brownwood) to Wichita Falls east to Athens and Paris. NE TX is east of Paris to Canton and north of I20. E TX is Paris to Buffalo and east to Texarkana to Jasper.



Thanks!!!!
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Re: Texas Winter 2017-2018

#2048 Postby cheezyWXguy » Sat Dec 16, 2017 10:18 am

If youre talking about the 06z, its because the GFS takes that upper low over AZ and retrogrades it west. As the NWS in FWD says, this is probably the least likely scenario at this time.

12z should initialize in the next 15 min. We'll see
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Re: Texas Winter 2017-2018

#2049 Postby Cpv17 » Sat Dec 16, 2017 10:19 am

spencer817 wrote:Is anyone else thinking the GFS is too warm for DFW?

The GFS operational, yes. The GFS ensemble mean, no. It’s too bad most of the forecasters only go by the operational runs though.
Last edited by Cpv17 on Sat Dec 16, 2017 10:27 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Texas Winter 2017-2018

#2050 Postby stormlover2013 » Sat Dec 16, 2017 10:21 am

nobody knows what's going to happen, models have been inconsistent the last few days and flip flopping, just like last weeks event we didn't know till about 2 days before what could happen, I will say this nobody should want a ice storm, would be miserable and the holidays won't be fun for yall not having any power for a couple of weeks.
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Re: Texas Winter 2017-2018

#2051 Postby spencer817 » Sat Dec 16, 2017 10:24 am

Cpv17 wrote:
spencer817 wrote:Is anyone else thinking the GFS is too warm for DFW?

The GFS operational, yes. The GFS ensemble mean, no. It’s too bad most of the forecasters only go by the operational runs through.

True, I like to get all of the models and compare.
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Re: Texas Winter 2017-2018

#2052 Postby Portastorm » Sat Dec 16, 2017 11:01 am

Cpv17 wrote:
spencer817 wrote:Is anyone else thinking the GFS is too warm for DFW?

The GFS operational, yes. The GFS ensemble mean, no. It’s too bad most of the forecasters only go by the operational runs though.


I'm not sure to whom you are referring Cpv17, but I can assure you that the NWS forecasters who I know personally as well as the private sector mets I know ... ALL of them do not go by the operational runs only. If they did, they would not last long in their jobs. No, they use all of the tools at their disposal and more often than not defer to the ensembles. When it comes to short term forecasting, then you'll see a greater preponderance on operational runs and even then ... they're careful about that.
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Re: Texas Winter 2017-2018

#2053 Postby 1900hurricane » Sat Dec 16, 2017 11:15 am

The 00Z ECMWF and most of the EPS members failed to develop 97W after greater support in runs prior. It isn't a recurving system, but a developing 97W would likely dump quite a bit of outflow into the mid latitude flow. I can't help but wonder if the handling of 97W is having downstream effects on the pattern.
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Re: Texas Winter 2017-2018

#2054 Postby iorange55 » Sat Dec 16, 2017 11:23 am

Looks like the 12z gfs is on track so far...

Stronger high coming down
Last edited by iorange55 on Sat Dec 16, 2017 11:27 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Texas Winter 2017-2018

#2055 Postby spencer817 » Sat Dec 16, 2017 11:23 am

It seriously boggles my mind as to why it avoids DFW on this run and many others.
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Re: Texas Winter 2017-2018

#2056 Postby Ntxw » Sat Dec 16, 2017 11:28 am

spencer817 wrote:It seriously boggles my mind as to why it avoids DFW on this run and many others.


12z GFS is a pretty close run for DFW, it's all a matter of temps as the precip shield is still fairly robust
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Re: Texas Winter 2017-2018

#2057 Postby DonWrk » Sat Dec 16, 2017 11:28 am

It's still holding onto a major widespread ice storm out west.
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Re: Texas Winter 2017-2018

#2058 Postby Ntxw » Sat Dec 16, 2017 11:30 am

About a foot of snow for Abilene (includes sleet), wintry mix of freezing rain, sleet, and snow at DFW on Christmas eve. No ice storm in S Texas this run
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Re: Texas Winter 2017-2018

#2059 Postby Portastorm » Sat Dec 16, 2017 11:31 am

What I'm noticing so far (through 192 hrs) about this 12z GFS run is that the upper low out west is not as well organized as in previous runs. Looks more like a deep upper short-wave trough and not a bowling ball upper low like previous runs showed.
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Re: Texas Winter 2017-2018

#2060 Postby iorange55 » Sat Dec 16, 2017 11:32 am

Ntxw wrote:
spencer817 wrote:It seriously boggles my mind as to why it avoids DFW on this run and many others.


12z GFS is a pretty close run for DFW, it's all a matter of temps as the precip shield is still fairly robust


Yeah, we all know the models struggle with surface temps with these fronts. It’ll also be interesting to see if they trend colder as we get closer. 2-3 days ago, the GFS was showing some very cold temps. The good news (or bad depending on ice) is that precip seems more likely.
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