Texas Winter 2020-2021

[Shoshana]

Is North Texas out of the woods for the remaining time frame of winter regarding snow/cold temps?

Historically no.

[Brent]

Is North Texas out of the woods for the remaining time frame of winter regarding snow/cold temps?

Historically no.

My first winter here it snowed in March

[TheAustinMan]

A little recap I made of the cold snap. There was a lot to keep track of, so let me know if something's off. Probably a few things will change as more information comes to light. You can find the full-resolution version on this link.

Minimum temperatures during the period are based on the NCEP Real-Time Mesoscale Analysis, which has been pretty accurate but might be off by a few degrees for some localities. The snow contours I've drawn are based very roughly on a lot of things... the NOAA National Snowfall Analysis, the maps from WFOs, LSRs, station reports... turns out it's very hard to make a snow accumulation map when a bunch of reports give conflicting estimates within miles of each other. Oh well. Hope the general idea is there.

Source: Graphic generated by me, with data from a bunch of different sources.


Here's the minimum temperature map again with the familiar Tropical Tidbits temperature color scheme and a few contours penned in:

Source: Graphic generated by me, with data from RTMA. RTMA raw gridded data is available at this FTP link, though recent hourly data is offered in a more digestible form at Pivotal Weather if you're ever looking for a quick snapshot of the state of the weather.


Still no water here in Austin. Hoping that changes this weekend as the thaw appears to have taken care of most of snow and icepack from the week. Aside from a few local areas in the Panhandle and Northeastern Texas, the HRRR shows most of Texas remaining above freezing tonight.

[cheezyWXguy]

A little recap I made of the cold snap. There was a lot to keep track of, so let me know if something's off. Probably a few things will change as more information comes to light. You can find the full-resolution version on this link.

Minimum temperatures during the period are based on the NCEP Real-Time Mesoscale Analysis, which has been pretty accurate but might be off by a few degrees for some localities. The snow contours I've drawn are based very roughly on a lot of things... the NOAA National Snowfall Analysis, the maps from WFOs, LSRs, station reports... turns out it's very hard to make a snow accumulation map when a bunch of reports give conflicting estimates within miles of each other. Oh well. Hope the general idea is there.

Source: Graphic generated by me, with data from a bunch of different sources.
https://i.imgur.com/5RLlvOy.jpg

Here's the minimum temperature map again with the familiar Tropical Tidbits temperature color scheme and a few contours penned in:

Source: Graphic generated by me, with data from RTMA. RTMA raw gridded data is available at this FTP link, though recent hourly data is offered in a more digestible form at Pivotal Weather if you're ever looking for a quick snapshot of the state of the weather.
https://i.imgur.com/65UI2Rc.png

Still no water here in Austin. Hoping that changes this weekend as the thaw appears to have taken care of most of snow and icepack from the week. Aside from a few local areas in the Panhandle and Northeastern Texas, the HRRR shows most of Texas remaining above freezing tonight.

This is fantastic, really nice work

[Texas Snow]

A little recap I made of the cold snap. There was a lot to keep track of, so let me know if something's off. Probably a few things will change as more information comes to light. You can find the full-resolution version on this link.

Minimum temperatures during the period are based on the NCEP Real-Time Mesoscale Analysis, which has been pretty accurate but might be off by a few degrees for some localities. The snow contours I've drawn are based very roughly on a lot of things... the NOAA National Snowfall Analysis, the maps from WFOs, LSRs, station reports... turns out it's very hard to make a snow accumulation map when a bunch of reports give conflicting estimates within miles of each other. Oh well. Hope the general idea is there.

Source: Graphic generated by me, with data from a bunch of different sources.
https://i.imgur.com/5RLlvOy.jpg

Here's the minimum temperature map again with the familiar Tropical Tidbits temperature color scheme and a few contours penned in:

Source: Graphic generated by me, with data from RTMA. RTMA raw gridded data is available at this FTP link, though recent hourly data is offered in a more digestible form at Pivotal Weather if you're ever looking for a quick snapshot of the state of the weather.
https://i.imgur.com/65UI2Rc.png

Still no water here in Austin. Hoping that changes this weekend as the thaw appears to have taken care of most of snow and icepack from the week. Aside from a few local areas in the Panhandle and Northeastern Texas, the HRRR shows most of Texas remaining above freezing tonight.

Outfreakingstanding!

[TexasBreeze]

That is seriously the whole entire event in a nutshell!!! Good map for a historical documentation!

[Haris]

Dont mind me, just saving that graphic to my camera roll.

Fantastic work buddy! Honored that you shared it with us!!! Must have taken a long time to craft. Beautiful layout

[South Texas Storms]

A little recap I made of the cold snap. There was a lot to keep track of, so let me know if something's off. Probably a few things will change as more information comes to light. You can find the full-resolution version on this link.

Minimum temperatures during the period are based on the NCEP Real-Time Mesoscale Analysis, which has been pretty accurate but might be off by a few degrees for some localities. The snow contours I've drawn are based very roughly on a lot of things... the NOAA National Snowfall Analysis, the maps from WFOs, LSRs, station reports... turns out it's very hard to make a snow accumulation map when a bunch of reports give conflicting estimates within miles of each other. Oh well. Hope the general idea is there.

Source: Graphic generated by me, with data from a bunch of different sources.
https://i.imgur.com/5RLlvOy.jpg

Here's the minimum temperature map again with the familiar Tropical Tidbits temperature color scheme and a few contours penned in:

Source: Graphic generated by me, with data from RTMA. RTMA raw gridded data is available at this FTP link, though recent hourly data is offered in a more digestible form at Pivotal Weather if you're ever looking for a quick snapshot of the state of the weather.
https://i.imgur.com/65UI2Rc.png

Still no water here in Austin. Hoping that changes this weekend as the thaw appears to have taken care of most of snow and icepack from the week. Aside from a few local areas in the Panhandle and Northeastern Texas, the HRRR shows most of Texas remaining above freezing tonight.

This is awesome. Good work and thanks so much for sharing!

[jasons2k]

Is North Texas out of the woods for the remaining time frame of winter regarding snow/cold temps?

Historically no.

As Harold Taft used to say...not until the mesquite trees start to bloom.

[richtrav]

I haven’t checked in lately, did I miss anything?

[cheezyWXguy]

Looks like the 6z GFS is trying to make the March 1 system a winter weather threat for ntx and ok, while the 0z looked more like a severe weather threat. Looks like it will be interesting either way

[Iceresistance]

Direct Weather has posted the offical forecast for Storm Season 2021, it's looking very scary.

https://s2.gifyu.com/images/Screenshot-2021-02-20-at-3.48.59-PM.png

(Confidence level is higher, around 80% now)

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1oQWu1Jpzc

Just as a disclaimer, DirectWeather isn’t very trustworthy in the weather community. They do a LOT of things for clicks and have a lot of bombastic thumbnails (calling a 1 inch snowstorm a major, damaging storm) and, at least on weather twitter, always gets a lot of just criticism for being way too reactionary and alarmist. Doesn’t mean that the severe weather season won’t be severe but I’d avoid posting them on here because they’re not really trustworthy.

I agree, I watched some of his videos during last year’s severe season and was disappointed when on several occasions he would just do a jazzed up version of the SPC’s convective outlook and call it his own prediction

They have changed a LOT since then, they became more conservative & because of forecasting issues they faced (And very unhappy Subscribers from failed forecasts), they decided to put out the "Confidence Level" recently (I've subscribed to them since 2019, & yes, they were aggressive back then, but they have changed) to see how likely it's going to happen, based on Model consistancy, how far away it is, & the margin of error on the totals . . .

[Iceresistance]

Uh oh, but at least I don't live in Shawnee & I have wellwater

https://www.news9.com/story/60319819a075e30bb2c7cb4b/city-of-shawnee-under-mandatory-boil-order

[wxman57]

Yall its the ICON!!! No question. Nailed the forecast here EVERYDAY. Only model that showed Austin below freezing straight beg. Thu AM

ICON was the worst model for Houston, by far. Had our temps falling to below zero. Lowest was 13.

[Iceresistance]

6z GFS



24-hour Kuchera Ratio Snowfall (The Ratios in Oklahoma are between 11:1 & 21:1)

[Brandon8181]

Good morning,

Is there a link here for for Spring weather discussion, tornadoes, severe spring weather, storm spotting equipment, etc?

Thank you so much.

[cheezyWXguy]

Good morning,

Is there a link here for for Spring weather discussion, tornadoes, severe spring weather, storm spotting equipment, etc?

Thank you so much.

I know there’s a general severe weather thread for the upcoming season in the USA weather section, but I don’t see much on in-depth storm spotting/chasing.

A few resources I’ve found over time:
https://www.reddit.com/r/stormchasing/
(The stickied posts/sidebar are good)
https://youtu.be/bq0-QXXtOro

https://youtu.be/WL7jc4-03Uc

https://youtu.be/IUIhoR0HRGM

Disclaimer: none of these are official sources. As a prerequisite to any chasing/spotting, sign up for a spotter training seminar. They’re free and can be found on your local nws forecasting office website. Dfw link here:
[url] https://www.weather.gov/fwd/skywarnmap[url/]

[Brandon8181]

Good morning,

Is there a link here for for Spring weather discussion, tornadoes, severe spring weather, storm spotting equipment, etc?

Thank you so much.

I know there’s a general severe weather thread for the upcoming season in the USA weather section, but I don’t see much on in-depth storm spotting/chasing.

A few resources I’ve found over time:
https://www.reddit.com/r/stormchasing/
(The stickied posts/sidebar are good)
https://youtu.be/bq0-QXXtOro

https://youtu.be/WL7jc4-03Uc

https://youtu.be/IUIhoR0HRGM

Disclaimer: none of these are official sources. As a prerequisite to any chasing/spotting, sign up for a spotter training seminar. They’re free and can be found on your local nws forecasting office website. Dfw link here:
[url] https://www.weather.gov/fwd/skywarnmap[url/]

Thank you sir!

[cheezyWXguy]

Looks like the 6z GFS is trying to make the March 1 system a winter weather threat for ntx and ok, while the 0z looked more like a severe weather threat. Looks like it will be interesting either way

I know these are fairly long range predictions, and that the situation will change a million times before then, but this March 1 system keeps catching my eye on the gfs.

If it holds together, I’m thinking less of a last chance winter weather threat and more of a severe weather threat for ntx. The coupling of the 500mb jet streak with the subtropical jet looks quite favorable on the 12z gfs, with moisture and instability present. If it digs a little bit further south and slows a couple of hours (note: the gfs tends to underdo this due to its progressive bias), it would make for quite a start to our severe season.

[Ntxw]

Barring some kind of monstrous heat wave this week, February for DFW is 34.6F so far for the monthly average. It is going to be the first sub 40F month since December 2000. I like to use that as a metric for an exceptionally cold month. Even the cold winters of 09-10 and 13-14 did not feature such a month.

Of modern history here are the few months that have achieved such a status. Some elite winters. One subtle common theme, except for the late 70s..they are more likely to occur in a...La Nina than El Nino. Often accompanied by a severe -EPO or -AO.

February 2021...?

December 2000
December 1989
January 1985
January 1984
December 1983
January 1979
February 1978
January 1978 <- 33.8 (record coldest month for DFW)
January 1977
January 1963
January 1962
January 1949
January 1940
January 1930
February 1929
January 1918
December 1914
December 1909
February 1905
January 1905
February 1899

One thing is certain, all of the 0F (there are only 5 including this year) or lower readings have occurred on years exclusive to this list.

Edit: 2021 is also joins 1899, 1918, and 1989 with 2 top 10 lowest temperature readings on record. -2F and 4F.